Voices added character to P-I

Generations of journalists have given the Seattle Post-Intelligencer its flavor and character. Some are known best for their work at the P-I, others for later accomplishments. Just a few:

Royal Brougham

(1894-1978)

The "dean of American sports journalists" wrote an estimated 18,000 columns in 68 years at the P-I. He had dropped out of high school to start work as a copy boy in 1910. He covered virtually every significant local sports event during his tenure, and died after suffering a heart attack at a Seahawks game in the Kingdome. A street near the stadium was renamed in his honor.

E.B. White (1899-1985)

This 1921 Cornell University grad wrote for both the P-I and Seattle Times before moving back to the East Coast in 1924. He's best remembered as the author of children's books, including "Charlotte's Web," but he also published "The Elements of Style," a 1959 revision of a reference book on written English.

Emmett Watson (1918-2001)

A Seattle native whose columns spanned more than half a century beginning in the 1950s — primarily at the P-I but in later years at The Seattle Times — Watson commented on every aspect of local life. His fictional "Lesser Seattle" was dedicated to protecting Seattle's charm by discouraging newcomers.

John O'Ryan (1918-95)

Equal parts adventurer and newsman, O'Ryan, at the P-I from 1969 to '86, took readers along on his journeys, whether he was exploring Alaska in his single-engine plane or searching the waters of Puget Sound for a six-gilled shark.

Frank Herbert (1920-86)

This Tacoma-born science-fiction author, best known for his novel "Dune" and its five sequels, was the P-I's education writer from 1969 to '72.

Tom Robbins (1936- )

The North Carolina native worked as an editor at the P-I and Seattle Times in the early 1960s before concentrating on novels that turned him into a cult hero. Among them: "Another Roadside Attraction" (1971) and "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" (1976), made into a 1993 movie narrated by Robbins.

David Horsey (1951- )

A Seattle resident since age 3, Horsey began drawing cartoons in high school. He came to the P-I from the Bellevue Journal-American in 1979, and his cartoons have won the P-I's only Pulitzer Prizes, in 1999 and 2003. His work will continue in the online P-I.