Former AP bureau chief Chuck Lewis memorialized

"How he loved being there when history was made," Dr. Vivian Chen, told a gathering of 75 masked participants at a memorial event Saturday for her late husband, 36-year National Press Club member and former Hearst and Associated Press Washington Chief of Bureau Chuck Lewis. 

Members of the Club, AP, Hearst, Gridiron Club, Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and other friends gathered Saturday at the Club to remember Lewis, 80, who died in March.

Speakers noted Chuck's skills.  He did not develop "networks," said Hearst colleague Stewart Powell, he just had "a genuine impulse to bring people together." Former AP judiciary reporter Jim Rowley remembered that Chuck not only insisted that reporters honored AP sourcing rubrics on attribution, but understood their nuances. 

Former AP Washington bureau chief, Sandy Johnson, remembered Chuck's time in AP human resources where he would visit bureaus, including hers in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, to talk to employees and identifying those he thought should be moved up the ranks.  She noted that AP-Washington was the ultimate "Old Boys Club" until Chuck became chief of bureau and started to change things by appointing Carole Feldman as news editor, a title Johnson later added.

Lucy Dalglish, dean of the Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland recalled her arrival in Washington to join the Reporters Committee. "He made me feel like I belonged, that I knew what I was doing, even though I didn't."  Lewis was a rainmaker for the committee, she said, sharing contacts and fundraising opportunities. He was always willing "to make the ask," she said.  She concluded, "He was a lovely man."