By Lucy Jokiel

Back in the mid-1980s, I gave up my career as a registered nurse and considered becoming a journalist. I remember walking into my first journalism class at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. The class was Public Affairs Reporting at Crawford Hall. Professor Beverly Keever looked like my former kindergarten teacher, who was extremely kind and friendly. This should be an easy class, I figured.

Professor Keever described all the "field trips" we would take -- to the police station, the state Bureau of Conveyances, a police-ride-along, Circuit Court, state libraries. My kindergarten field trips were always fun, so I expected it would be the same.

Then she began talking about the importance of finding and using public information as a means to better reporting.

I remember going "on assignment" to dig up key information for our stories. "Follow the money," Bev said. At first it was exciting to be Brenda Starr, but after four hours of rumbling around dark basement agencies and pleading with prune-faced clerks to give me the records, I was ready to call it quits. But the next day, after Bev's passionate lecture about the importance of public records, I was ready to do it again.

Bev told us stories about her adventures on the way to becoming a journalist:

• Growing up on a farm in Nebraska, Bev and her younger sister were instilled with a love for reading by their parents. Rather than playing with dolls, she fell in love with books like Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, about a turbulent era in China's history. I thought I was the only one who, as a child, had been influenced by Pearl Buck and other writers about Asia.
• As an undergraduate at the University of Nebraska, Bev studied Chinese culture and history and developed an interest in Asia. She also studied French, dreaming that she would some day cover the Paris fashion shows. (I had a similar dream).
• As it turned out, her study of French proved decisive in her landing a job with Newsweek magazine -- not in Paris, but in Saigon. She was selected over a more seasoned correspondent who lacked that language skill.
• In 1962, five years after graduating from the University of Nebraska with majors in journalism and political science, she arrived in Vietnam (a place she had never heard of) as the only female reporter. For the next seven years, she filed stories for Newsweek, The New York Herald Tribune, and the Christian Science Monitor. In 1968, she was nominated by the Monitor for a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting.

That's all I needed to hear. I knew I wanted to be a journalist. Bev’s class was the most important journalism course I have ever taken.

Over my years as a working journalist, I called Bev whenever I needed her expert advice about a difficult story. I once received a call from someone who knew I was about to publish a story detailing his criminal activities. He threatened to kill himself if I did so. Since Bev was on the Mainland, I had to ask myself: "What would Bev Keever do?" Of course, I knew what her answer would be: "Publish it – but be sure all your facts are correct!" (He didn't kill himself).

I was thrilled to once spend a day with Bev while she interviewed a physician at his home in Kailua. He had treated patients who had suffered radiation injuries as a result of an atomic bomb set off by the U.S. Navy on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands in 1946. Bev used this information in her book News Zero: The New York Times and the Bomb, proving that the U.S. tried to hide much information about its nuclear program in the Pacific.

Over the years, all of us Keever junkies have gotten together for a social event or to mingle with a well-known journalist who had come to town. Bev's husband, Chuck, always joined us jabbering journalists. I think Chuck deserves a special award for his efforts in supporting and keeping track of his wife. I often called the Keever home at odd hours seeking her help. "Well, she left home about 7 a.m., and I haven’t seen her since," said Chuck. "But I'll find her for you."

Even though she is retiring, I doubt that we’ve seen the last of Bev Keever. I predict she will have a "refirement" rather than a retirement. Today, thanks to Bev Keever, I remain passionate about journalism and have had the good fortune to pass on all the knowledge she gave me at UH to the students in my summer magazine writing class on that campus. Yesterday, one of my students told me that I remind him of Professor Keever. Despite his obvious apple-polishing, it was one of the greatest compliments I've ever received!

By Gordon Y.K. Pang