It occurs to me as I stand poised ready to enter a new phase of life – the great beckoning happy abyss known as retirement – that I should take a moment to reflect on the last 36 years (minus two weeks) of my life spent working for the Wallowa County Chieftain.

I often reflected that my career choice, perhaps, shows a lack of a huge amount of ambition. I mean working for a small weekly paper in an end-of-the-road location doesn’t really compare to one of my Pendleton High School newspaper peers who went on to an editorial position on a publication in New York City.

But working for three-and-a-half decades in beautiful Wallowa County for the historic Wallowa County Chieftain suited me, and I have no real regrets. The adventurer in me will always wonder about the many paths not taken, but I think that’s true of everybody, no matter what road they decide to travel through life.

I remember being interviewed and pretty much being hired on the spot by Don Swart Sr. in the summer of 1978 as he was building the press room addition to the old Chieftain building.

I was the single mother of an almost 2-year-old daughter with experience on two other Eastern Oregon weeklies, the Burns Times Herald and the Heppner Gazette Times, preceded by a stint as editor of a community college paper.

I apparently was ready to settle down, because Wallowa County – and the Chieftain – has been my home ever since mid-September 36 years ago.

My first couple weeks on the job I covered a plane wreck, a grocery store explosion, the sale of a sawmill, Alpenfest, a suicide and a car accident, and in many ways the pace has never slowed.

Working with an ever-changing cast of colorful characters and good friends, I’ve covered 35 years-plus of meetings, controversies, events, crimes, happy news, tragic news and always Wallowa County news and Wallowa County people. I’ve written up weddings, obituaries, engagements, graduations, business openings, new teachers, elections, parades, art festivals, trials, car shows, rodeos, Out of the Past and even an “It’s All Relative” column for a time. I’ve even been known to cover a sports event or two.

I was run over by a mule at the first-ever Mule Days and sent to Las Vegas to cover the Miss Rodeo America pageant. I’ve been rained on, lost, stuck in the snow, sunburned

I look back on the people I’ve worked with here over the years, and realize how lucky I’ve been. I’ll never forget Bill Forster, Thelma Morgan and Bob Evans, who are gone now. There’s also the Swart family, Harold Marcum, Linda Eytchison, Ann Christman, Sue Scholz, Gail Murphey, Bill Rautenstrauch, Nancy Rudger, Denise Lowe, Mary Louise Nelson, Linda Knifong, Doris Woepner, Betty “Boop” Settergren, Kim Lamb and many, many others, including current co-workers Rocky Wilson and Rich Rautenstrauch who returned after years away from the Chieftain. I feel like I’m leaving the Chieftain in the very capable hands of editor Rob Ruth, office manager Cheryl Jenkins and the rest of the team.

On the Chieftain I went from a manual typewriter (with the name “Wandschneider” taped to it) to a computer in the 1980s; from cut-and-paste layout to on-line pagination and then, most recently, shipping everything off to a pro designer; from black-and-white film camera and darkroom developing to easy and colorful digital photography; printing in-house and spending endless hours stuffing the paper together, to shipping it all off to the East Oregonian’s modern press in Pendleton; from being the second newspaper in the state with its own website in 1991 to having 3,700 followers on Facebook.

I’ve also gone from raising two great kids in the wonderful Joseph community to being part of the lives of my three beautiful grandchildren, now ages 4, 7, and 9.

There’s a lot more I could say about my years on the Wallowa County Chieftain and maybe someday I will. I’ve learned to love local history and it makes me happy to know that I’ve helped record the history of the county for almost 36 years, week-by-week, as it was unfolding.

Columnist Elane Dickenson is a reporter for the Chieftain, but only through the end of this week.