BAR HARBOR – Former Sun Journal Regional Editor Polly Ouimet, a lifelong Twin Cities resident, was inducted into the Maine Press Association Hall of Fame on Friday. She was one of four people honored for lifetime achievement in journalism at a ceremony held at the Atlantic Oakes Resort.

Other inductees were the late Robert B. Beith, former executive editor and publisher for the Guy Gannett newspapers; Jim Brunelle, a well-known political reporter, columnist and commentator; and the late Campbell B. Nivens, former publisher of The Times Record in Brunswick.

Ouimet, who died in June at the age of 76, joined the Lewiston Daily Sun in 1966 with the state news staff, responsible for coverage beyond the Twin Cities area. She became a proofreader in 1967 and was promoted to regional news director in 1976.

“There was no one more in tune with local and regional news and making sure we had the best news coverage possible,” Sun Journal Publisher James Costello Sr. said.

Charlie Pomerleau, who Ouimet hired as the River Valley section page editor in the 1980s and who is now the city editor for the Standard-Examiner in Ogden, Utah, called Ouimet one of the most remarkable people he had encountered in his career.

“She covered a geographic area larger than some states, managing somehow to coordinate a long list of school boards, boards of selectmen, elections, planning commissions and county commissions, as well as spot news coverage of fires, accidents, murders, lost kids and hunters, all done with a smoldering cigarette dangling from her lips, at least until the mid-’80s when smoking was banned in the newsroom,” he recalled.

“Her persistence that we get the story, we get the story right and whenever possible we get the story first are three fundamental journalism values still driving this newsroom today. Many of us can thank Polly for showing us how to do that,” Regional Editor Scott Thistle said of Ouimet.

Heather McCarthy, Ouimet’s daughter and the Sun Journal’s nighttime news editor, said, “My mother taught me what I still believe today: that the essence of a daily newspaper’s mission lies in the thorough and accurate coverage of its towns and cities. She saw it as a newspaper’s civic duty to supply readers with the information they needed to make informed choices about town and city business.”

“She never met a public official she was afraid to call at home, after hours or on a weekend,” McCarthy said, “and was tireless in her efforts to ensure that towns conduct their business in public,” a passion that endures in the Sun Journal’s current newsroom.

Although Ouimet retired from the Sun Journal in 1996, she remained a newsroom scanner attendant until last December, calling the regional and city desks if she heard anything of interest.

A plaque displaying Ouimet’s image and highlights of her career will be placed on display in the Hall of Fame at the University of Maine in Orono.