84-Year-Old Volunteer Brings Journalism Expertise to Red Cross

Written by David Rudduck, special to Redcross.org

July 22, 2002 — He has been nominated for two Pulitzer Prizes, worked as an undercover reporter in a mental hospital, exposed a black market baby operation with his writings and traveled to more than 100 countries. It seems that, 84-year-old Rolla J. “Bud” Crick, has done it all, but the most rewarding part of his illustrious career may be his public affairs role volunteering with the American Red Cross.

Crick, who volunteers his public affairs skills both for his local Oregon Trails chapter and at disaster scenes nationwide, didn’t begin working for the Red Cross until retiring as a newspaper reporter in 1989, however his exposure to the organization drew his attention long before that. The frisky volunteer’s first encounter with the Red Cross was in 1944, just before he was sent overseas to join the effort in the Pacific Theater. “I was in the old Army Air Corps and was sent to Randolph Field, Texas, after basic training. The Red Cross was kind enough to bring my entire family to Texas to be with me,” he says. "I was only making $21 a month so there was really no way I could afford to do something like that.”

In 1948, Crick had his second encounter with the Red Cross as both a victim and a reporter of the Memorial Day flood that inundated thousands of acres in Washington and Oregon. “When I was covering the disaster beat for The Oregonian I was very impressed by the spirit of the American Red Cross volunteers even though I wasn’t one myself at the time,” he says. “The floods left about 18,000 people, and my family, homeless. It suffices to say that I got a pretty good feel for the important work this organization does.” Though the seeds of volunteerism were sewn, the Red Cross would still have to wait another 50-odd years until Crick actually joined forces.

In 1994, Crick, ready to retire but not ready to settle down, finally decided it was time to join the American Red Cross as a volunteer. "There were no particular disasters going on at the time,” he says. “But I’d never forgotten my past experiences with the Red Cross and thought that this would be a wonderful way to spend my retirement.”

Ironically, Crick’s first disaster assignment was the 1995 southern Oregon Floods. "Funny how the more things change the more they stay the same," he says with a chuckle. "I basically did the same work I did covering the 1948 Oregon floods for The Oregon Journal — taking pictures and writing stories."

An up-and-coming journalist before World War II began, Crick was drafted into the Army Air Corp — hernia and all — and stationed at Selman Field in Monroe, La. There, he pulled double-duty writing for the airbase’s newspaper and working as a columnist for The Monroe World. Later, he was transferred to the Infantry and sent to the Pacific Theater.

Upon his arrival at the base in Manila, Crick’s interviewing officer jokingly asked him what job he would take if he could have any position in the Army. “I told him that I’d like to start Stars & Stripes magazine in the Pacific Theater,” Crick says with a broad grin. “The officer was still laughing when he introduced me to Maj. Parks, whose challenge it was to actually begin a Pacific edition of the publication.”

With his usual aplomb, Crick cinched the job and worked in the Information and Education detachment doing front line interviews and news releases. Crick was even able to go to Japan immediately after the surrender and help commandeer the English language presses in Tokyo for the Far East edition of the Stars & Stripes.

On August 6, 1945, Crick left Tokyo to cover the developing U.S. occupation for Stars and Stripes, arriving in Hiroshima just as a team of scientists began investigating the bomb’s destruction; not surprisingly, Crick was among the first reporters to arrive in the “hot zone".

“The belief at the time was that the city would be uninhabitable for perhaps 100 years. The town was in absolute ruins and instruments detected a heavy amount of radiation in the mud under the eaves of the few standing buildings," Crick said.

In 1957, Crick blazed another trail when he became the first reporter to reach the South Pole. He was chosen when the U.S. Navy drew lots to pick which journalists would go where other wordsmiths had never gone before. He went there on behalf of the Portland Zoo to capture a story about a group of Emperor penguins living on the shores of Antarctica. Along with National Geographic photographer, Tom Abercrombie, Crick flew in a Navy Neptune bomber to Amundsen-Scott Station on what was only to be a 5.5-hour flight with a 20-minute stop on the surface.

Unfortunately for others on the plane, (but fortunately for Crick and Ambercrombie), the intense cold caused the oil cooler to blow out and the group was stranded for 23 days. "That was quite an ordeal," Crick says. "But we kept busy digging around in a snow mine for water and conducting research on ice formations. I also got to interview the scientific leader at the South Pole station, Dr. Paul Siple, who as a youth and Boy Scout accompanied the Admiral Richard E. Byrd to Antarctica in a 1928-1930 expedition. That was quite interesting."

Though he and Ambercrombie had missed “The Great Penguin Chase,” Crick came back with a much bigger story about life at the bottom of the world.

After his military tour was completed, Crick moved to Portland and found employment as a reporter at the Oregon Journal. During his 30 years there, and at The Oregonian, after the two local newspapers merged, he chased stories at home and overseas, covering police; federal and county courts; serving as an automotive, aerospace, military and travel editor; and earning multiple awards for objectivity and professionalism. Crick and his wife Eleanor retired in 1989.

Over the last eight years, Crick has been on 24 relief operations including a three-month tour at Ground Zero. “When 9/11 happened,” he says, his voice growing distant. “I called my wife Eleanor and said, ‘You know, I was in Hiroshima after the atomic bomb and Yokohama after the block buster bombing. Now I’m standing here looking at this devastation on our nation’s own soil.' I had the disheartening realization that this too was a man-made attack.”

Crick is one of more than 164,000 Red Cross Disaster Services volunteers who readily give of their time to bring relief to victims of more than 67,000 disasters each year. Why does he volunteer? “It just boils down to simply feeling good about what I’m doing. I feel a great deal of personal pride by helping people...that’s why I’m still here. As long as my health will allow I’ll be chasing disasters."

For more information on your local American Red Cross chapter, visit www.redcross.org/where/where.html.

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