Sandy Emerson's Chamber legacy

Summer smoke, fan mail and more

I first met Sandy Emerson in fall 1984, when he managed the Coeur d'Alene Chamber of Commerce from a small building on what is now the northeast corner of The Coeur d'Alene Resort's front lawn. I was fresh off the U-Haul truck from Lewiston, where I had been news editor of the Morning Tribune. I'd swapped that hat to return to reporting. At The Spokesman-Review CDA bureau, I was assigned to cover local government (City Hall and the county courthouse). I dropped by Sandy’s office to get a feel for the town and my new beat. I don't recall much about that visit, other than Sandy was smoking a pipe with sweet-smelling tobacco and viewed me as another in a string of reporters from the "out-of-state newspaper" -- a common put-down of the SR by The Press and allied local leaders during the "Great North Idaho Newspaper War” (1980s-90s).