'The Bright One': Happy 155th birthday, SeattlePI

"The Bright One" was a slogan the Seattle Post-Intelligencer picked to describe itself a half-century ago, along with the words "The Voice of the Northwest Since 1863" across the masthead of the newspaper.

The P-I lived up to its billing, witness the reaction of my subscribing parents.

A big smile crossed my mother's face the morning a P-I photographer caught pictures of a nocturnal visit by gambling kingpin Ben Cichy to the home of King County Prosecutor (and courthouse boss) Charles O. Carroll.

When SeaWorld captured a pod of Orca whales in Budd Inlet off Olympia, my father said of the P-I's front page: "I haven't seen a headline like that since VJ Day." The story launched a successful drive to free the whales.

The P-I was home to quirky columnists, an irreverent young radical named Lorenzo Milam filling the letters page, and Emmett Watson being gossipy and gripping.

When Watson wrote about his first experience smoking marijuana, before a Giants game at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, at least three sets of parents I know grilled their student offspring on the then-forbidden weed. "Is there something you're not telling us?" I was asked.

Too many years have passed, but . . .

We're still at it, still striving to be "The Bright One."

The morning newspaper ceased print publication and went online only in 2009.

No longer would there be such headlines as "A Stunning New Pope" (John Paul II), or bloopers like "Tuna Biting Off Washington Coast."

No more could Hanford workers buy out the P-I at a north Richland market to get news of nuclear waste mishaps and WPPSS reactor delays not available in their local paper.

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But we try to use a small, even skeletal staff to put meat on major stories.

SeattlePI.com has been on top of major breaking news, from the collapse of the I-5 bridge over the Skagit River at Burlington, to the great Oso mudslide, to the tragic Amtrak derailment south of Tacoma.

We've publicized worthy causes, such as the successful listener rescue of KPLU Radio (now KNKX) from a sales agreement that would have shut down its local jazz and blues program, and laid off the entire news staff.

In 1981, writing about announcement of the joint-operating-agreement of the P-I and The Seattle Times, the Seattle Weekly's David Brewster described the P-I newsroom as an "overreaching, overworked" place.

Still is, starting at 6 a.m. on weekdays. Overreach is needed. Since "The Bright One" first appeared, Seattle has become an international city, a technology center, and home to three outfits bent on global domination -- Amazon, Starbucks and Microsoft.

A not all that unusual day -- May Day, 2017. I was off covering a morning service at St. Mark's Cathedral, at which the "Holy Box" was declaring itself a sanctuary for would-be refugees. ICE men need not cometh. The cell phone rang. It was Mary Lowry with news that her husband, ex-Gov. Mike Lowry, had died.

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Somehow, an appreciation of Lowry's life and passion for social justice was put together, along with the St. Mark's-sanctuary story, along with all the other goings-on in Seattle on May Day.

Whatever the work load, worthy contributions keep coming. Soon after May Day, had a call from Garfield High senior Keenan Simpson. He was trying to raise money to ransom six kayaks that the Seattle School District had seized from a student group. The outdoor group has severed ties to Seattle Schools.

The school district is a bureaucratic, self-protective outfit, loosened up by shining a little critical light on the Stanford Center. Simpson deployed a GoFundMe drive along with a little publicity. The kayaks were re-acquired. Simpson is now in training as a slalom kayaker for the 2020 Canadian Olympic team.

We've kept at the Orca whale cause, from loss of food supply (the finicky whales must have Chinook salmon) to the threat posed by a larger-than-Keystone oil pipeline and oil port in Canada. It would send 34 laden oil tankers a month through waters shared by the two countries.

The Trump era requires quickness, from controversial policy shifts by the administration to lawsuits fired at the 45th President by Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The Puget Sound area has become an epicenter of resistance, witness more than 10,000 showing up for a protest at the SeaTac detention center.

As with the print newspaper before it, SeattlePI is not and never has been in the business of loudly blowing its own horn.

Other publications write about themselves. An old joke asks how many Seattle Times reporters it takes to change a light bulb. Answer: Six, one to change the bulb and five to write about how they did it. (With staff cuts, jokes a friend over there, they can now do the job with three people.)

Horn blowing can cause red cheeks, witness a month-out election poll showing Republican Dino Rossi with a 49-39 percent lead over Democrat Kim Schrier in the 8th District. Schrier won 52.6 to 47.4 percent.

Honestly, this is only the second time in four decades that I have been asked to write anything about my employer.

What message to leave: After many twists and turns, we're very much here. We're part of the life of a city. "Voice of the Northwest" is no longer an accurate description, but we are a voice -- in a region surrounded by envy.

We're still striving to be "The Bright One." Turn to SeattlePI.com and we will do our best to inform you, intrigue you, amuse you, and at times get under your skin.