Anne Thompson was a journalist in a small rural community, but she met and interviewed world leaders and was on a first-name basis with at least one U.S. president.
Thompson, longtime co- owner of the Rocky Ford Daily Gazette, died Aug. 25. She was 86.
Thompson and her husband, Ross – who died last year – owned the Gazette for more than 50 years. She was publisher at the time of her death.
Anne Thompson also was a former member of the state House of Representatives (1957-61), a member of Colorado Press Women and a columnist for the paper.
World figures didn’t visit Rocky Ford, which is 160 miles southeast of Denver, so Anne Thompson visited them and wrote stories for the Gazette.
She was a member of a handful of small daily and weekly newspaper editors who traveled each year to one of the world’s hot spots, said her son, J.R. Thompson, now publisher of the Gazette.
The trips were arranged by the late Nathan Bolton, a small-town editor in Louisiana.
The editors had meetings with former Israeli Prime minister Golda Meir, former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and former Rhodesian President Ian Smith. (Rhodesia is now Zimbabwe.)
The group visited China before the U.S. had formal diplomatic relations with that country and the Georgian Republic as it was gaining independence.
A dedicated Republican, Anne Thompson was at a political gathering when then-President Reagan walked over to her, calling her by her first name.
“I was boggled,” said her son.
His mother and Reagan had met when Reagan worked at a radio station in Des Moines.
She was a no-nonsense, independent woman who “could be pig-headed” and rarely voted a straight Republican ticket, her son said.
She was a good reporter, he said, “because she was a good listener.”
She was philosophical about life, saying “the world changes faster than most people do.”
Anne Marie Sheely was born in Des Moines on Feb. 7, 1920, and graduated from the University of Iowa. She worked on papers in Iowa before coming to Colorado in 1946 and working at the La Junta Tribune Democrat. She and her husband owned the Baca County Banner in Springfield before moving to Rocky Ford in 1954.
She married Ross Thompson on July 31, 1949.
She received the Golden Makeup Rule Award from the Colorado Press Association, and the CPA named the Rosses Publishers of the Year in 1979.
In addition to her son, she is survived by a grandson and a great-granddaughter. In addition to her husband, she was preceded in death by two daughters, Annette McCracken and Dana Hipp.
Staff writer Virginia Culver can be reached at vculver@denverpost.com or 303-954-1223.
