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Betty Brumley has delivered the news to rural Skagit County for 28 years
SOUTH SKAGIT HIGHWAY — Betty Brumley’s uncontrollable, flame-red hair blew back as she walked to the trunk of her car.
She glanced at the small collection of tools inside her dust-caked Chevy Tracker. Her intent eyes swept past a shiny, new stack of rectangular newspaper delivery boxes. Brumley overlooked the circular saw and then paused briefly at her favorite tool, a miniature chain saw.
Instead, she grasped the only remaining tool, a drill. Her hand muscles flexed as she pulled out a newspaper box and went right to task. Brumley squatted by a post along the rural highway, propped up the box and began drilling.
“I like being self-sufficient,” she said as the grinding machine bored deeper into wood. “I don’t respect women a lot when they’re too girlish. ... This is a job I chose to do.”
The box was securely attached within a minute, and another customer was ready to receive the day’s news. Brumley looked back at the box with satisfaction and climbed into her sport utility vehicle. The car soon kicked up gravel and continued east under the dense forest that covers the South Skagit Highway.
She still had hundreds of papers to deliver along the rural thoroughfare.
East Skagit institution
Brumley, 63, has been the face of the Skagit Valley Herald to many rural subscribers for 28 years. The fiercely independent contractor delivers 314 newspapers every day to residents along the South Skagit Highway and throughout the town of Concrete. She delivered as far east as Marblemount until six months ago, when her husband of 23 years, Jim Brumley, took over that part of her route.
They may not all remember her name, but eastern Skagitonians know Betty Brumley as their “paper lady.” She’s delivered there for so long that she’s become an east county institution.
Customers often call to make sure she’s all right if she’s late or misses a day. Circulation Director Brian Naplachowski knows about Brumley’s following, partly because he is one of her appreciative customers near Concrete.
“There’s hardly a time I go out to breakfast that I don’t hear people talking,” Naplachowski said. “They’ll always say ‘the redhead.’ I’ll hear them say ‘she’s that lady, she’s great, she’s so nice.’ I actually hear about her on the outside.”
Happy as her own boss
Two weeks ago, Brumley’s ink-stained fingertips guided her car along the winding road that is her route. Driving the curvy highway is no challenge to a woman whose entire body has been made strong by 42 years of newspaper handling.
Her career began when she was a 21-year-old new mother who needed to help support her family. Brumley first delivered along the Columbia River Gorge for The Oregon Journal, an afternoon Portland, Ore., paper that folded in 1982.
The delivery director hesitated to hire a woman, but he gave her a one-year trial period.
“He said ‘OK, we’ll hire you temporarily. But the first time you have a complaint or a screw up, you’re outta here,’” Brumley recalled as she simultaneously navigated the South Skagit and rolled papers into cylinders for delivery. “I was out delivering in a blizzard because I was determined they weren’t going to fire me.”
She needed the job.
“I was desperate; times were tough,” she said. “I only made $300 a month, but I was so happy to be my own boss.”
By the time her son was 2, she had him helping on the route. He sat on paper bundles inside their tiny Volkswagen, and she taught him to count and roll newspapers. He later learned to read with the stories printed in those same newspapers.
“Every place I went, I went to the newspaper first to get a job,” Brumley said.
Portland. Oklahoma City. Even Walla Walla and Spokane. Each new city added another publication to her tally. This lifelong newshound has delivered for a total of eight different newspapers in four decades.
Brumley once turned down a circulation director position, despite better pay and benefits. She prefers the open road, real people and taking things into her own hands. As an independent contractor, she calls her own shots.
Chain saw for Christmas
Newspapers stacked high in the center console, Brumley’s car continued eastward on the road that parallels the Skagit River’s twists and turns. Following the daily route helped her recall past incidents, not all of them pleasant.
Once, she nearly ran over a man lying in the road. She called authorities to report him dead, but it turned out he was just sleeping off a long night out. Dogs have attacked her twice. One customer came to her rescue in 2002 when another car hit hers head-on after she placed a paper into a box on the road’s left-hand side.
Brumley knows the challenges of Skagit County’s rural roads. She’s faced mud, floods, ice, snow and more along the often-dangerous South Skagit.
She hated how fallen trees slowed her down during the windstorms of December 2006. She often connected a tow rope to her car and pulled debris aside. But some trees were just too big. She recalls with annoyance the time she had to wait 20 minutes for some guy with a chain saw to drive by and clear the road.
Her husband’s solution? A chain saw for Christmas.
“This one is real light and easy to use,” said a gleeful Brumley as she held up the compact, battery-operated machine as if she were a schoolgirl presenting at show-and-tell.
So many carrier colleagues have heard her animated description of the prized toy that they call her “chain saw mama.” But it’s no joke to Brumley. She’s ready for the next time wild weather throws a tree in her way.
“It’s all right, I have my chain saw,” she said.
‘Just doing my job’
Brumley usually passes the three-plus hours of solitude her route allows her with nothing but scratchy news radio broadcasts and a back seat piled with newspapers. After finishing the bulk of her work two weeks ago, Brumley crossed The Dalles Bridge and merged onto Highway 20. She neared Concrete, population 833.
Now she was approaching civilization. First stop was Albert’s Red Apple Market, where checker Gail Boggs was taking a break from ringing up groceries. Sometimes readers show up early and wait by the empty delivery shelves for Brumley’s daily drop-off, Boggs said.
“She’s reliable; she’s always here,” Boggs said.
“No matter what the weather,” chimed in fellow checker Debra Lahr. “We’re always glad to see her.”
They may not know about the chain saw, but customers seem to appreciate all the effort Brumley puts into her daily deliveries.
She once recognized a car parked outside an upriver hotel after their Cape Horn home was flooded. So she started delivering to the hotel. The family later told Brumley they hated to move to Mount Vernon because they’d lose her as a carrier.
Across town, customer Ray Jensen waited for Brumley’s Tracker to deliver to the downtown post office. The sighting usually triggers him to put on a pair of boots. He knows she’ll arrive about 10 minutes later at his roadside box on Limestone Street.
“I get a kick out of talking with her,” said Jensen, standing beside Brumley’s still-running car.
Brumley knows she’s appreciated but isn’t sure how to respond to compliments. She said as much earlier in her route.
“I’m overwhelmed by the comments of my customers,” she said. “I’m just doing my job. I’m humble and a bit embarrassed.”
‘Real personal’
Briskly walking through Concrete’s rustic Main Street two weeks ago, Brumley was in her element. She carried a dozen flat newspapers by her side as she went from store to store, dropping off single copies to longtime subscribers. She stopped every once in a while for a brief chat, but she never lost sight of the task at hand.
Sometimes Brumley takes vacation, maybe a week off. But she usually gets itchy after a few days. And she worries that a substitute could make a mistake. Some nights she wakes up out of breath from a nightmare that has her delivering on a route she doesn’t know.
“I am their paper lady, and I feel responsible for my customers,” Brumley said. “They don’t know the Herald; they know me. And so it’s real personal with me.”
* Franny White can be reached at 360-416-2148 or .
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