‘I pretend to be the sports reporter here’ … Lon Austin was one of a kind

Published 2:49 pm Wednesday, March 26, 2025

I will never forget the first time I met Lon Austin. I was standing in a “hallway” between the wood-paneled walls of the longtime Central Oregonian office and towering gray dividers that sectioned off reporter work spaces. A short parade of reporters walked past, introducing themselves to me, the incoming reporter who would join the ranks in the next couple of weeks.

Most of the greetings were your typical exchange of pleasantries, putting my nervous new-guy brain a little more at ease. Lon, a towering, bald-headed, goateed man was the last to walk by, and his greeting is seared into my brain to this day: He looked at me, said, “Hi I’m Lon. I pretend to be the sports reporter here,” and never broke stride.

I watched as he walked past, expecting him to stop, maybe flash a sly grin or offer a chuckle … something! But he just kept going, with those long, slow strides I would see for many years to come at the office, at sporting events and many other community occasions.

Needless to say, I didn’t know what to think. Was he having a bad day? Maybe he didn’t like my haircut? Perhaps he was just that focused on his upcoming meeting? Surely, my future encounters would be different, right? Well … kind of.

On my first official day of work, Lon was getting a lot of attention at the office, and it gave me a glimpse of the type of man I was now working with. You see, he had just covered the Paulina Rodeo the previous weekend and in his dedication to get the perfect photos, he had gotten run over by a horse.

Everyone in the office was needling him with jokes and he responded in that same deadpan, Eyeore-style voice I had encountered during our first meeting. He didn’t smile – trust me, I was looking for one – and just downplayed the whole occasion.

I couldn’t figure it out. I couldn’t figure him out. It was obvious by the way his colleagues teased him and laughed that they liked the guy and knew he could take a joke. But me? I just felt more and more intimidated as he never seemed to deviate from this grumpy persona.

Of course, anyone who had the pleasure of knowing Lon is aware that beneath that exterior was a very caring, kind and dedicated man. It seemed like he knew everybody, and everybody seemed to love the guy — especially the athletes he covered for nearly 20 years. I didn’t witness it as much as the coaches or parents, but Lon thoroughly enjoyed talking to the kids and didn’t hesitate to strike up conversations with them. He had a way of putting the students at ease — you could see it in their smiles and their body language and the way they would crack jokes with him. Between his years of sports coverage and additional stints in coaching volleyball, basketball and track, plus time spent as a substitute teacher, he likely touched thousands of young lives.

As a colleague, Lon may have first struck me as a grump, but that was just a front. The man was an absolute hoot. He had a sharp sense of humor that was dry enough to rival the Sahara. It came out in the same Eeyore style as all his other words, so you had to pay attention to catch it.

I also learned about his phenomenal work ethic, churning out close to a dozen stories a week after dutifully attending as many sporting events as he could shoehorn into his schedule. And on every newspaper production day, I could walk in the office well before 8 a.m. only to find Lon seated at his desk already two or more hours into his workday.

When he wasn’t doing his job, he often pitched in to fulfill photography requests — not because we liked to punish him with extra work but because he was just so great at it. No matter the lighting, the conditions, the level of difficulty, he always rose to the occasion (take a look at the Prineville Follies shots in this paper, and you’ll see what I mean).

And of course, Lon knew sports. I am a bit of a sports fan, but his knowledge made me look like a kindergartener and him a college professor. No matter the sport, from football to table tennis and everything in between, he could dissect it and leave my head swimming with new information. Perhaps it came from covering so many competitions for so long. Or maybe it’s because he was a prolific athlete in his own right.

Lon played a lot of sports in high school, college and beyond. It’s hard to remember them all, but I know he played football, volleyball and basketball. He ran cross country and track and threw the javelin. And as he crept into his 60s, he was still willing to mix it up on the basketball court.

He liked to keep moving, and I became convinced that the harder the activity got, the better he liked it. Lon would often return from hiking or camping “vacations” recounting his struggles against the elements, the trails that he traversed or other mishaps that sounded as exhausting as they did hilarious. Anyone who read his post-vacation columns knows what I’m talking about.

Sometimes, the stories he shared about his athletic endeavors, his vacations or even the various places he lived throughout his life were hard to believe. I started referring to them as Lon’s tall tales — I mean how could one person fit so much into one lifetime? But the more I worked with him, the more I got to know him and his capacity for work and for adventure, the more I was willing to believe those supposed tall tales.

I think that’s why that phone call on March 24 was such a shock. Lon had died? I couldn’t believe it — I still can’t. How could this happen to someone with such a spirit of adventure, such a zeal for covering sports (even five years into “retirement”), and such an aversion to idle time? Nobody lives forever, but Lon seemed like the kind of guy who might try.

He leaves a hole that is impossible to measure. His coverage of high school sports was unmatched and his photography skills will be very hard to replace. His impact on hundreds if not thousands of kids will be sorely missed as will his companionship with many in the community. As news of his sudden passing spread, social media gave a glimpse of how beloved Lon was and how much people will miss him. A lot of tears were shed that day.

I’ll miss his visits to the Central Oregonian office and our inevitable chats about sports or the latest “vacation” through which he suffered. I will miss his dependability and skills when we needed them. I will miss that guy who was “pretending to be the sports reporter here.”

Rest in peace, Lon.