By Betsy Russell

With all the turnover in Idaho news organizations, we often lament the loss of institutional memory. Here's a case where a longtime Idaho journalist, Tim Woodward of the Idaho Statesman, has reminded us all of someone we may never have heard or met, but who is an important part of the fabric of Idaho's journalistic history.

Tim himself is an Idaho journalistic institution; I've been in the state 25 years, and Tim came before me on the Boise downtown redevelopment beat, writing stories that shone an important light on what it all meant when I looked at them years later to make sense of what I was covering there in the late 1980s.

So I'd like to thank Tim, for his reporting, for his work, and for the article that's reprinted below, which was first published in the March 13, 2011 Idaho Statesman, under the headline, "Vern Moore, 1916-2011 - Idaho's Walter Cronkite." It is reprinted here by permission.

Betsy Russell is a Boise-based reporter for The Spokesman-Review, and is the president of the Idaho Press Club.