Rosalie Muller Wright (Inducted 1999)

Rosalie Muller Wright became Editor-in-Chief of Sunset Magazine in May of 1996. She had been assistant managing editor of Features at the San Francisco Chronicle overseeing 10 daily and Sunday sections of the newspaper since 1981.

Wright was executive editor of New West Magazine from 1977 to 1981, where she was the editor in charge of the 1977 expose of Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple, and which in 1978 won the National Magazine Award and the SDX Public Service Award for the story about the dangers of the Firestone 500 tire.

She started her career as managing editor of Suburban Life Magazine in New Jersey while a full time student at Montclair State College. A graduate of Temple University with honors in English, Wright was assistant managing editor and then managing editor of Philadelphia Magazine from 1969 to 1973, when she became founding editor of Womensports Magazine for Billie Jean and Larry King. Womensports won a Penney Missouri Excellence Award in 1974. She served as features editor at the San Francisco Examiner from 1975 to 1977. Wright, a past president of the American Association of Sunday and Feature Editors, is a member of the American Society of Magazine Editors. She has also served on the board of Women's Forum West.

Wright is admired by those who supervise her as well as those who work for her.

William German, editor, San Francisco Chronicle, had this to say about Wright: "Rosalee was every managing editor's dream of what a features editor should be. She had terrific judgment and was a litmus test on stories. If an editor was concerned about a story, he would run it past Rosalee. She also was the greatest exerciser of diplomacy and worked well with everyone. Rosalee was also well-connected; she knew her peers in the trade. If you needed a columnist, Rosalee would have choices within a half hour. She had a real knack for finding good people."

Liz Lufkin, assistant managing editor of Features at the San Francisco Chronicle remembers working for Wright. "A couple of things stick in my mind about her. For starters, Rosalie was always so cheerful and upbeat, and she would always say such nice things. When I first started working at The Chronicle, I would run into her at parties, etc. and she would introduce me to others as follows, `This is Liz Lufkin, who writes the most wonderful stories for us, and we're so glad to have her at the paper...' Well, you can imagine how wonderful it was to hear the the A.M.E. Features talk about me like that. I can still remember the feeling of literally soaking up her words of praise. It inspired you to work to work even harder, do even better. Others she hired here had the same experience, and we all loved her for it. It was so refreshing to be around someone so positive, so enthusiastic, especially in the newsroom, where we tend to be a bit cynical.

"Rosalie could also be brief, in a delightful sort of way. I used to crack up people with my imitation of her: "Hi! Great! Bye!'' Seriously, she was a busy person here - my main visual memory is of her dashing through the lobby, on her way to some important meeting or another - and she didn't waste her time, or yours.

"Finally, I think one of her lasting legacies here is the people she helped hire, including two of our star columnists, Jon Carroll and Adair Lara , entertainment editor Mark Lundgren, fashion editor Trish Donnally, executive food editor Michael Bauer, art critic Kenneth Baker, classical music critic Joshua Kosman and , of course, me! When she left, Jon and Adair wrote these touching farewell columns about her. Not many people get that kind of respect, but Rosalie certainly did. I think it's a tribute to her that even though she left years ago, she is still remembered fondly by so many.