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Nevada Newspaper Hall of Fame member Anne Pershing was remembered at a memorial service in Reno on Thursday as a dedicated and compassionate journalist.
Close to 100 people attended the memorial at The Grove for Pershing, a former Nevada Press Association president and board member whose career in newspapers spanned 33 years. She died May 6 in Reno.
A native of Bushnell, Ill., Pershing became a reporter at age 38 after returning to college at the University of Nevada, Reno to get a degree in journalism. Over the next three decades, she advanced to general manager of the Lahontan Valley News in Fallon, where she had started, and later launched a competing weekly there called the Fallon Star Press.
At the time of her death, at age 71, she was a columnist for the Reno Gazette-Journal writing about senior issues under the title of ‘Grandma With Attitude.’
At the memorial service Thursday, the program for the event was a mock newspaper including a piece by her young granddaughter, Jordyn, labeled ‘Granddaughter With Attitude.’
Her daughter, Jennifer, and son, Tim, and several other family members were in attendance.
Anne McMillin, a close friend and former colleague, Steve Ranson, current editor of the Lahontan Valley News, and Bob Erickson, longtime councilman and former mayor of Fallon, were among those who spoke of Pershing’s combination of tenacity and compassion when it came to covering news in her adopted hometowns.
I represented the Nevada Press Association and newspapers statewide in appreciating the help and advice she gave to colleagues over the years she was a board member.
I also noted her pride in being a member of the Hall of Fame, a position she shared with one her idols, Mark Twain.
