was "handy, dandy Sally" who did everything when she first started at the Hillsboro Argus in 1952.

On March 2, she celebrated her 60th Argus anniversary, with flowers from co-workers, lunch out with her colleagues in advertising and a message on a downtown reader board.

Roberts has seen plenty of changes in the advertising business during the past 60 years. Early on, ads were set in melted metal type, then they moved on to offset printing, later it was desktop publishing and now it's online.

Keeping up with changing technology is no problem for Roberts, 78, who counts her co-workers and clients as the reason she comes to work.

"It's the people," said Roberts. "I really like the people. It's been like family here at the Argus."

Roberts was, in fact, married to the late Don Roberts, the Argus managing editor for many years, and is considered the "grande dame" by her Argus colleagues.

She recalls working for another "grande dame," the legendary Emma McKinney, the Argus publisher for many years and the matriarch of the McKinney family, which owned the Argus for more than a century.

"Mrs. Mac was stern and business-like," said Roberts, who has been compared favorably with the pioneering publisher.

Roberts worked as the Argus receptionist for a while and part of that job involved selling classified ads. For 42 years, Roberts managed the Argus classified advertising department, seeing it from its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s to its recent decline with the shift to Internet advertising.

In all those years, Roberts said, only a handful of clients were "not so nice to work with." The rest of the people, she said, were wonderful.

Roberts has no plans for retirement and can't imagine what she would do if she did retire. She said she never had time for hobbies, but she loves a clean house.

Roberts is happy to be using her organizational, business and people skills beyond traditional retirement age. "And, it keeps my brain active," she said, adding that she worries about such things since her mother and her sister had Alzheimer's disease.

A few years ago, Roberts traded the high heels she paired with her smart business suits for comfortable flat shoes. Some coworkers still miss the click of her heels as she went around the office conducting business.

"What I would like is one of those step counters," she said. "I'd like to know how many steps I do every week with all those trips to the front desk and the copy machine."

"All that walking is what keeps me going," she said as she embarks on her seventh decade -- and likely one of the longest tenures in Oregon newspaper advertising history.

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