News / Pinellas

Times columnist Betty Jean Miller: a ‘born journalist’ who led the way for other women

A lifelong St. Petersburg resident, she reported on community events in her hometown. Mrs. Miller died last week at age 88.

In this undated photo from the Tampa Bay Times archives, Betty Jean Miller sits at her desk in the newsroom. Mrs. Miller was a columnist and staff writer for the Evening Independent and the St. Petersburg Times for nearly 30 years. [Tampa Bay Times]

By Megan Reeves, Health and Medicine Reporter
Tampa Bay Times
published October 23, 2019

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ST. PETERSBURG — As she chronicled city happenings and flashy social affairs for her hometown newspapers, Betty Jean Miller became a star herself in the Sunshine City.

For nearly 30 years, she was a regular at parties and philanthropic events that she brought to life again on the pages of the Evening Independent, St. Petersburg’s first daily newspaper, and later for the St. Petersburg Times. That was after she fought her way into the then-mostly male journalism industry, leading the way for generations of women who came later.

Mrs. Miller died Oct. 17 at St. Anthony’s Hospital of complications from pneumonia. She was 88.

Throughout her life, she wholeheartedly loved St. Petersburg, even as it changed with time.

Born in 1931, she grew up as the city was still a “small town”, said Mary Evertz, her friend since age 10 who also wrote for the Times.

Their summer days at the beach together as children turned into covering the same assignments for the newspaper, now called the Tampa Bay Times, then weekly lunches in their retirement years. They played parts in each other’s weddings, became godmothers to each other’s children and lived only a few blocks apart, Evertz said.

“Most everything we did was together,” she added. “In the highlights and the low lights.”

In middle school, they felt the impact of World War II as troops filled the city for deployment training. A young Mrs. Miller filled care packages for those already overseas. Then on her 14th birthday, the war ended and a grand celebration erupted on Central Avenue, forming a fond memory she often recalled as an adult.

That same year, Mrs. Miller enrolled at St. Petersburg High School. She became editor of the school’s newspaper, Palmetto & Pine, and “fell in love with journalism,” Evertz said. “She loved any assignment they gave her.”

Mrs. Miller went on to Florida State University, an all-female school at the time. After two years, she transferred to the University of North Carolina to study journalism.

While the campus was co-ed, only women who had finished two years of college could enroll. And it wasn’t common at the time for women to become reporters. But Mrs. Miller didn’t care.

“She was one of a very small group of women who believed they had a right to shape the American conversation,” said Susan King, dean of the university’s Hussman School of Journalism and Media.

King called Mrs. Miller a “born journalist” who became a “reporter of consequence”. Even when the world around her didn’t seem ready for women in newsrooms, she pushed on with passion, the dean said. Now, 75 percent of school’s students are women.

Betty Jean Miller, seen here in a family photo, “was one of a very small group of women who believed they had a right to shape the American conversation,” said Susan King, dean of the Hussman School of Journalism and Media at the University of North Carolina.
[ Courtesy of Becky Slater ]

Mrs. Miller began her career in journalism at the Evening Independent, a sister publication to the Times, which absorbed it in 1986.

Many employees at the time were from elsewhere, but Mrs. Miller “was a presence that kept the newspapers connected to St. Petersburg,” said Times CEO Paul Tash, who came to the Times as a reporter in 1978.

“Some of us stayed here, and this became home,” he said. “For Betty Jean, St. Petersburg was already home, and always was."

Mrs. Miller wrote about debutante balls and fashion trends, like the bulky sweaters of the 1980’s. “They look swell in the ads,” one of her columns read, “but have you tried keeping one of them on when you’re carrying a purse and the wind is whistling around your ears?”

Once, she rode an elephant in the circus for a story. She wrote about the way a couple danced together on their 60th wedding anniversary in 1987, and another year interviewed every St. Petersburg resident 100 years old or older.

“She was the perfect person for it, because they would see her smiling face and tell her everything,” said Sherry Robinson, a former Times editor who worked with Mrs. Miller.

The groups and topics varied, but she was always going to parties and festivals on assignment, meeting the most interesting people, doing the most interesting things, her daughter Becky Slater remembered.

Often when she returned home from work, Mrs. Miller would reach into her purse to pull out cocktail napkins. They bore scribbles that would soon turn into stories for the newspaper. “There’s a column in that,” she would say.

Betty Jean Miller's journalism career took her on many assignments. In this undated photo from the Times archives, she is seen covering a U.S. Coast Guard event.
[STAFF | Tampa Bay Times]

Mrs. Miller kept blank bits of paper underneath her pillow, too, just in case an idea popped into her head in the middle of the night, Slater said. A quote on her bedroom wall read: “...when I can’t sleep, I write in the dark.”

Sometimes, Mrs. Miller would lug her portable typewriter up into a tree house in an empty lot next to her family’s home. “I just thought it would give me a different perspective,” she said later.

That perspective helped her find stories where other people might not, said Lennie Bennett, a former art critic for the Times who took Mrs. Miller’s job when she retired. She was curious and engaged, even as she grew older.

“She just had all the hallmarks of a good reporter that were combined with a real humanistic approach to people,” Bennett recalled. “It wasn’t just about getting the story.”

BIOGRAPHY

Betty Jean Miller

Born: Aug. 14, 1931

Died: Oct. 17, 2019

Survivors: Two children, Katherine Bass and Rebecca Slater; three grandsons and several nieces and nephews.

Service: A funeral service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday (10/26) at St. Thomas Episcopal Church, 1200 Snell Isle Blvd. NE, St. Petersburg.

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