PERRYILLE NEWSPAPER EDITOR DIANA DICKINSON DIES, AGE 44

PERRYVILLE -- Diana Kay Dickinson of Perryville died Friday, June 11, 1993, at Perry County Memorial Hospital in Perryville. She was editor of The Perry County Republic-Monitor.

Dickinson was 44 years old.

She was born Sept. 5, 1948, in Minneapolis, Minn., the daughter of Benjamin and Ruth (McLeod) Dvorak. She grew up in Minnesota and spent most of her life there. She moved to Perryville in 1987 as editor of The Republic-Monitor.

She married Arthur Dickinson on Nov. 21, 1992, and is survived by him. She is also survived by a grown daughter, Kimberly Theresa Berg, from a previous marriage. Berg graduated this spring from Bemidji State University in Bemidji, Minn.

Other survivors include her mother, Ruth Dvorak of Eden Prairie, Minn.; and two sisters, Susan R. Dvorak of Dallas, Texas, and Debra A. Dvorak of Minnetonka, Minn.

Dickinson began her journalism career in 1981 as a "stringer" (assignment reporter) at a small weekly paper, The Country Echo, in northern Minnesota. She later became publisher of The Pilot Independent, another small town weekly in Walker, Minn.

She had no formal journalism training but learned her skills as she worked. In 1992, she received an award from the Missouri Press Association for an editorial she wrote and also received a national award from the National Newspaper Association for on-the-spot news coverage. She was recently named the first-place winner in the American Heart Association-Missouri Affiliate's Eugene Field Media Award competition. The award was for a story concerning a Perry County resident whose life had been saved through cardio-pulmonary resuscitation.

She was a member of the Board of Directors of the SEMO Press Association and sat on several advisory boards, including the Perry County Home Health Agency Advisory Board and the Perryville Area Career Center Adult and Community Education Citizens Advisory Board. She was a member of the Perryville United Methodist Church.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Monday at Young and Sons Funeral Home in Perryville. The Rev. Ed Hankinson will officiate. Visitation will be at 10 a.m. Monday.

Burial will be at York Chapel Cemetery in Longtown.