Iowan made her mark in Milwaukee journalism

Laurie Van Dyke, an Iowan who became a leading light in Milwaukee journalism — after a stop at The Gazette — died May 18 in Denton, Texas, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. She was 93.

Van Dyke was born in Prairie City in 1927, the daughter of a Dutch immigrant, and grew up her family farm, driving a tractor during summer breaks from Mitchellville High School, according to her obituary.

She graduated from Drake University with a degree in journalism and political science and went to work for the Fort Dodge Messenger in the society news department, where newspapers stashed female reporters in those days.

But after a male classmate left a news job there, she took it on, covering police, city hall and county beats, the Journal Sentinel reported.

Van Dyke then went to The Gazette, where she was a photographer and reporter, before joining the Milwaukee Journal in 1960 and the Milwaukee Sentinel in 1961, where she became was a city editor and managing editor. She retired in 1993.

While at The Gazette, Van Dyke climbed over a barbed wire fence to photograph a wreck. A male colleague was so amused that he photographed her in action. The Gazette used the photo in a promotional ad, with text that would never get in a newspaper these days, describing her as “a Pretty Girl who handles a camera with about the same aplomb as a housewife handles a saucepan.”

In Milwaukee, Van Dyke reported on the civil rights movement in the 1960s, riding a bus with Milwaukee's delegation to the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s march on Washington and also covering the Freedom Riders in Mississippi before moving into newsroom management.

“Laurie led the way,” former Milwaukee Sentinel colleague Marta Bender said. “Her work ethic, determination and dedication to the paper became the gold standard.”

Van Dyke was an avid traveler, making photo safaris to Africa and going to China shortly after the country reopened to Westerners. At 5 feet 11 inches tall, she stood out on that Far East trip, according to the Milwaukee newspaper.

Van Dyke lived the last 10 years of her life in Denton, near her nephew, Dr. Bruce Eckel, and his family. He said his aunt had a digital subscription to the Milwaukee paper until the end of her life.