Josephine Iva Zimmerman

Renowned trailblazing and veteran Utah Journalist Josephine Iva (Seaton) Zimmerman passed away on Saturday, July 17, 2010 at the age of 88.
She was born November 5, 1921 in Bellingham, Washington, but lived in Utah since before starting elementary school. She lived in Price, Parkdale, Provo, and Lehi before marrying Cecil and eventually moving to Springville. She attended BYU graduating with honors in journalism, winning the Forace Green Award. During her time at BYU, she began working for The Salt Lake Tribune to help finance her education. She eventually moved to the Daily Herald in 1965 where she covered a variety of beats for over 3 decades including the cities of Provo, Orem and Springville, the Alpine, Provo and Nebo school districts, state and county government, the Central Utah Water Conservancy District, Wasatch Mental Health, the farm bureaus and other agencies. She was known as a tenacious, meticulous, and courageous reporter who proved herself willing to hold government accountable by always asking the hard questions. One former Utah County Commissioner once said he instructed his staff to give! Josephine whatever she asked for, no matter how damning, because it would be better to do that than to have her go after him for holding back information. She also strove to raise the bar for fairness and ethical behavior. In addition, since both she and Cecil were master gardeners, she wrote a gardening column for 20 years. Those who were lucky to see her home garden got an insight into her softer side. After her retirement from the Daily Herald in 2001 at the age of 80, she was honored with the Utah Journalism Pioneer Award in 2006 for her lifetime achievements by the Utah Headliners Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists. She was an active member of the Springville Community Presbyterian Church for more than 40 years and saw service in the local church Session, the Presbytery of Utah, the Synod of the Rocky Mountains and the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A.
She is survived by their four children, Kurt of Salt Lake City, Elise of Salt Lake City; April of Temecula, Ca, Peter of Springville, and five grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held on Saturday, August 7 at 5 PM at the Springville Community Presbyterian Church, 245 South 200 East, for her and her late husband Cecil, who passed away last February, to celebrate their life together.