Don Dedera, beloved Republic columnist, author and historic preservationist, dies at age 90

Don Dedera, a beloved longtime Arizona Republic features columnist, author and former editor of Arizona Highways magazine, died Tuesday, just two weeks shy of his 91st birthday.

In addition to his journalistic accomplishments, Dedera was actively involved in helping preserve some of the most iconic pieces of Arizona history, including Western author Zane Gray's cabin near Payson, the Hubbell Trading Post on the Navajo Nation, and the Phoenix Indian School. 

Known for his self-deprecating sense of humor, Dedera once described filing a column from an old cavalry camp in the Mazatzal Wilderness Area via homing pigeon. 

"The copy desk attributed the improved grammar to the bird," he quipped. 

Dedera was remembered by a colleague as the heart and soul of the newspaper.

"In the annals of The Republic, he had a special chapter," said Bill Shover, the longtime community relations manager for The Arizona Republic. "For years he reflected the spirit of people in the community."

According to a biography that accompanies his papers in the Arizona State University Library archives, Dedera got his start in journalism while serving as a combat photographer in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1946 to 1948, right out of high school.

After his discharge, he enrolled on the GI Bill at Arizona State College, the forerunner of Arizona State University, and graduated with a journalism degree in just three years. In 1985, he was named a charter member of the ASU Walter Cronkite School of Journalism Hall of Fame. 

Dedera began working for The Republic as an obituary writer, night police reporter and general assignment reporter in 1951 and was named a features columnist two years later. His personal touch and sometimes folksy style were instantly popular, and his work was widely acclaimed. He was honored with the national Ernie Pyle Memorial Award, one of the highest honors for feature writers, in 1958. 

Two years later, he published a compilation of his columns in a book called "A Mile in His Moccasins." 

That same year, 1960, Dedera wrote a series of columns that helped win parole and eventual pardons for two men, Tom and John Power, who had been unjustly imprisoned for 42 years in connection with a predawn shootout that erupted after a sheriff's posse attempted to raid their wilderness cabin in 1918. 

During the 1960s, Dedera reported on the Cold War in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and served a stint as a Vietnam War correspondent for The Republic in 1966. He returned in 1969 to tour the country with U.S. Sen. Barry Goldwater.

Dedera was named editor of Arizona Highways Magazine in 1983, a position he held for two years until returning to his first love, which was writing. In 1988, he published "A Little War of Our Own," an authoritative history of Arizona's notorious decade-long Graham-Tewksbury feud, a range war that claimed as many as 50 lives and wiped out most of the male heirs to both families.

In all, Dedera wrote more than 20 books and thousands of articles over his 60 year career. 

He was honored with the National Society of Arts and Letters Literary Award in 1988 and the Lowell Thomas Award in 1990. In 2007, he was recognized as an "Arizona CultureKeeper" for his efforts to promote Arizona history.

According to a family biography, Dedera was born in Arlington, Virginia, in 1929 and moved to Arizona as a teenager with his parents, who were seeking relief for his father's arthritis during World War II.

The family settled into a small house — so small that Dedera slept on the porch — in Sacaton on the Gila River Indian Community, southeast of Phoenix, where Dedera's father worked as a technician in plant genetics at a cotton research station. 

In 1946, Dedera enlisted in the Marines at age 17 and was assigned to the Marine Corps Motion Picture Production Unit at Camp Pendleton, where one of his assignments was to document Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier in 1947.

Dedera is survived by his wife, Nancy. According to his wishes, no memorial will be held. His ashes will be spread in the Mazatzal Wilderness Area. 

John D'Anna is a reporter on the Arizona Republic/azcentral.com storytelling team. Reach him at john.danna@arizonarepublic.com and follow him on Twitter @azgreenday.