MOSES LAKE — Patti loved those Dairy Queen Blizzards, especially the mint chocolate chip. So when the Herald staff paid tribute to Patti with ice cream, of course, there was some mint chocolate chip. Because it was Patti.

Patti Trujillo was in the advertising department here at the paper, but more than that she was an integral part of the Columbia Basin Herald, known to a generation of coworkers and customers. Patti passed away Sept. 9 while undergoing her first treatment for lung cancer.

“She was like my second mom,” said CBH General Manager Bob Richardson.

Patti will be remembered for her kindness and joyful spirit.

“She had a heart of gold. She’d do anything for anybody,” said her colleague and close friend Laurie Herbert. “She was always the first one to volunteer, to chip in.”

Patti worked the sales desk for well over a decade – almost two. She was really good at it, and part of that was the way her clients became more than advertising customers.

“What you find, in talking to a lot of her clients, was that she didn’t just call them to sell them advertising. She called them to check in, some of them weekly, some of them biweekly,” Herbert said. “She knew about their families, and they knew about hers. She took the time to get to know her clients.”

The support Patti gave to her customers was also extended to her coworkers. She worked at the CBH for a long time with a lot of salespeople, some with experience and some without.

“The inside salespeople that we’ve had here over the years, she would kind of take them under her wing, and she would help them,” Richardson said. “She wasn’t just worried about her own success – she was worried about the newspaper’s success.”

She carried that attitude into relationships with all of the paper’s staff and the community CBH serves.

“She really cared. She was one of those that just – cared,” Richardson said.

She did, said former Hagadone Regional Publisher Caralyn Bess. Patti cared about her job, and about the newspaper and the community, Bess said.

“No matter how busy she was she always took time to check in on other people and see how they were doing,” Herbert said.

“Patti wasn’t just part of the team, she was part of the family,” said CBH Audience Development Director Dana Moreno. “Was there one person in the building who didn’t know Patti?”

Those that knew her held her in high esteem and treasured the happiness she carried with her.

“She was kind of a perpetually sweet factor in my life,” said paginator and staff writer Joel Martin.

Bess said Patti could be relied upon, day in and day out.

“You never had to worry about Patti. You could count on her,” Bess said. “She did her part and pulled her weight.”

Ad sales staff benefited from her knowledge, which she gave freely, Richardson said.

“She had done it for so long and was so good at it, initially she was intimidating because it’s hard to live up to that,” he said. “But she was just very helpful.”

Herbert got to know Patti when she came to work on the advertising desk. Herbert said she had experience in newspaper advertising, but in a market that was a lot different than Moses Lake. Patti’s mentorship helped her settle in.

“She was awesome,” Herbert said.

Patti and Laurie became fast friends as well as colleagues.

“We just clicked. We had so much in common,” Herbert said. “We started with a friendship that turned into - like family.

“We shared everything. No judgment. You could say anything,” Herbert said. “And we always laughed, God sent me to Moses Lake for a reason, and I think it was just to meet Patti. There was just something special about the friendship we had.”

That friendship extended to their families; Herbert’s daughter Jenny Herbert wrote a tribute to Patti.

“I think I can speak for many when I say Patti was truly one of a kind,” Jenny Herbert wrote. “She was one of the strongest people I’ve ever had the privilege of knowing and was so cherished and loved by all who knew her. She was such a bright light in my life and so many others.”

Patti liked doing what she did behind the scenes; she wasn’t much for the limelight. Her longtime heart condition began to worsen recently, and she didn’t really want people to treat her any differently, Herbert said. She didn’t want people to worry.

“I would have to press her (for details),” Herbert said.

Patti would acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, the doctors had talked about serious health challenges.

“And then she’d say, ‘Don’t you say anything to anybody. I don’t want Bob to worry, so don’t tell,’” Herbert said.

Patti didn’t want it to be about her, she said.

“She (said), ‘I’m not used to asking for help. That’s a big pill for me to swallow.’ And I said, ‘Well then, open wide. You’re going to be swallowing that pill, and we’re going to help you,” Herbert said. “...It’s a big loss.”

That’s a loss that is felt throughout the CBH office, with staff consistently pointing out one thing they miss about Patti.

“Just her sense of humor,” Richardson said. “She was always good for a laugh.”

Herbert agreed.

“She could always laugh,” Herbert said. “And (she) loved her sarcasm. She tried to come off as kind of a tough person, ‘I’m going to stick to my guns, this isn’t going to happen,’ sort of thing. But in the end, she was a softy.”

“I’m definitely going to miss her,” Richardson said.

Richardson was CBH circulation manager and advertising manager, publisher of the Sun Tribune and Basin Business Journal, during his career before becoming general manager. Through it all Patti was always there, he said.

“I’m definitely going to miss her…,” Richardson said. “She was the one constant, the one I (could) always count on.”

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].