In 1955, the original Ann Landers died, and Eppie Lederer, a.k.a. Ann Landers, applied to the Chicago Sun-Times to take over the job of writing the paper's advice column. The first of the 30 questions she had to answer in applying for the position came from a person in a dispute with his neighbor about a walnut tree. The writer said he owned a walnut tree planted in his yard, but many of the walnuts from the tree were falling on his neighbor's lawn. The dispute was over who rightfully owned the nuts.

Lederer said she was stumped, but she wanted the job, and she wanted to impress the judges. There had to be a precedent case she figured, so she called Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, who served from 1937 to 1975. His answer, which she wrote in her column, was that the walnuts belonged to the neighbor, but the neighbor was not allowed to sell them.

Lederer's responses must have been good enough, because she got the job. She began writing the column with the help of her twin sister Pauline Phillips a.k.a. Abigail Van Buren of Dear Abby, who shortly after began writing her own column for the San Francisco Chronicle. Since then, the two have been responding to questions and offering advice in columns tucked in features sections across the country.

On Oct. 3 they got a chance to stand apart from those sections for a special honor.

In an evening ceremony that day, which Lederer attended, the two were inducted into the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editor's Hall of Fame. The two are the 14th and 15th members and the only two non-newspaper editors to have received the honor. The decision was unanimous.

"Certainly no two people have attracted more people to our features sections and kept them coming back day after day," said Dan Norman of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and chairman of the Hall of Fame committee.

Norman praised and thanked the women for addressing subjects such as teen pregnancy, apartheid and AIDS in their columns long before mainstream news stories dared cover such issues.

Lederer, who described her career as a privilege, not work, had thanks of her own.

"It's a great honor, but not an honor I have earned by myself. I've been richly blessed," she said.

Lederer said she often doesn't know the best way to answer a question, so she employs the help of experts. After calling Justice Douglas for her first column, she said her next call was to the chief dermatologist of the Mayo clinic to ask what to tell a man who got a rash whenever his mother-in-law came to visit.

The petite woman, who curtsied in response to the continued applause at the end of her speech, said she couldn't imagine doing anything that would give her more pleasure or satisfaction than giving advice to others.

In her videotaped speech, Phillips issued similar sentiments.

"The advice business hasn't changed much," she said, "People need guidance and a chance to be heard."

She noted she and her sister had come a long way since the two wrote together in college. Her daughter, Jeannie Phillips, who received the award on her mother's behalf.

"People need a compassionate listener and objective voice," she said of the importance of her mother's columns.

Before she left, Lederer offered a bit of personal advice to a young writer.

"Follow your gut," she said, "Get out there. Be a trailblazer."

Amanda Karr is a journalism student at the University of Maryland in College Park.