Dr. Angus Stewart, UO'56, and his wife Joan, UO '55, have given $173,625 to the School of Journalism and Communication through a trust that will eventually create an endowed fund in memory of his mother, Lois Bynon Stewart.

Angus Stewart, a semi-retired California ophthalmologist, made the contribution in March.

His mother never attended college, but both her son and daughter, Sara Stewart Johnson, graduated from the University of Oregon. Angus Stewart said he gave the gift to the School of Journalism and Communication to commemorate her decades-long career at newspapers in Klamath Falls, Coos Bay and Hawaii.

"Lois Bynon Stewart is representative of a generation of women journalists whose dedication, talent and commitment paved the way for young women entering the field today," said Dean Tim Gleason. "The Stewarts' gift will help us provide opportunities for many of those young aspiring journalists."

Stewart believes his mother and a coworker were nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for World War II-era stories on a Japanese internment camp riot near Klamath Falls.

"Lois Bynon Stewart is representative of a generation of women journalists whose dedication, talent, and commitment paved the way for young women entering the field today." --Tim Gleason

"I did it mostly to give something that I could attach my mother's name and memory to," he said, adding that he formed a bond with the University and friends he made there.

"That (UO) sort of became my home," he said. "Being an Oregonian, I got pretty attached to the school."

Lois Bynon was born in 1905, about the time her father and grandfather established Hollywood's first newspaper, the Hollywood Sentinel. The newspaper business was a short-lived venture for her father. But she later returned to the field while still in high school by joining the staff at the Coos Bay Times. She worked there as a reporter, feature writer and columnist when such newspaper jobs were scarce for women.

In the early 1930s, she joined the Klamath Falls newspaper, where she met and married a pressman, Ivor Neal Stewart. Her son remembered so many people calling his mother at home about stories that she had to keep a phone and notepad at the dinner table. He also recalled the entire family going to fires and other breaking news stories--his mother wrote the stories, but his father was just as interested in them.

"As a kid, I was always being pulled out of bed at night because there was some excitement to go to," Stewart said.

She and the managing editor worked day and night to report a riot at an internment camp. She worked in Klamath Falls until the early 1950s, then "retired" to Hawaii.

"Mom was going to just sit on the beach and rest. My mother lasted about two weeks," Stewart said. For more than 20 years, she worked at two Hawaiian newspapers. Ship captains in Hawaii tipped her off when interesting people were arriving. She then took a pilot boat to interview such people as Herb Caen of the San Francisco Chronicle and Groucho Marx, who she said had an unsavory character.

Stewart said his mother had a talent for turning just about anything into a story. She was simply interested in getting the news out, he said.

Stewart said his mother's journalism career gave him an appreciation of what it takes to publish a newspaper.

He said, "Putting out a good paper every day is no small thing. She used to tell me, 'Son, do you realize how much information you can get for a nickel?'"

Stewart went to the UO medical school and did an internship in general medicine in Panama. He trained in ophthalmology at the Mayo Clinic and practiced in Eureka, Calif. Stewart has "retired" to half-time and has traveled to Third World countries to perform cataract surgeries. In June, he did his fourth stint in Ghana working through the Christian Eye Ministry. He and Joan
live in Eureka.