Friends and colleagues of former Napa Valley Register Editor Ross Game, 80, remembered him this week as a steadfast newsman who helped launch the careers of many young journalists, from Napa to Launceston, Australia.

Born in Chicago on July 29, 1929, Game died Oct. 18 in Napa, succumbing to ALS, better known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Former Register Managing Editor John Shields, who now lives in Arizona, said Game “was easy to work for. If you did the job, he treated you with great respect and let you go about your business. I had great respect for Ross.”

Game had a long and varied career that included serving as Register editor and holding top positions at other papers, including those in Lake Tahoe and Petaluma. He wrote a book about the disappearance of famed aviator Amelia Earhart, served on the boards of various political and journalism organizations, wrote for the Associated Press, created international bonds that led to the sister city relationship between Napa and Launceston, Australia, and covered the war in Vietnam for the Scripps League chain of papers, of which the Register was once one.

He was editor of the Register in the late 1960s and 1970s.

It was in Vietnam that he met L. Pierce Carson, who has worked in the Register newsroom for more than 40 years.

Carson was stationed in the public information office of the U.S. Army’s First Infantry Division, Big Red One, 30 kilometers from Saigon. He wrote features for the division’s newspaper and Game wrote human interest stories about the men in Carson’s division, Carson said.

Upon leaving the military, Carson was looking for a job and said he thought about relocating to California from Washington, D.C. He called Game, the only person he knew in California, for advice.

Game offered Carson a job in Lake Tahoe, but Carson politely declined, partly because he wasn’t a gambler and partly because he didn’t want to be in a cold climate. Game then offered him a reporter job in Napa. This time, Carson accepted.  During those first years in Napa, Carson learned his way around the valley with the support and encouragement of Game.

“He was great,” Carson said. “He was an editor who gave you a task and would just expect that you would do it. Ross was just like ‘Hey, I want you to do this.’”

Shields said that Game was a champion of young reporters, often bringing on two or three interns during the summer and helping them launch their careers.

Alan Young, who first met Game while Young was a broadcast engineer in Napa, said that his close friend had only one favorite pastime.

“Ross was always working,” Young said. “He always had something that was helping people or community project or following up on a news story. As far as hobbies? Community support was his hobby.”

Game’s journalism led him to many encounters with national figures including Adlai Stevenson and Ted Kennedy, and he struck up friendship with Ronald Reagan. Reagan, then California governor, was among the VIPs who were allowed to use Ross’ car phone when visiting the valley to make a speech at the Veterans Home of California in Yountville. Game’s correspondence with Reagan continued even as Reagan ascended to the White House.

Diane Ballard, the director of the Napa Chamber of Commerce during the 1970s, said that Game was a private person who revealed little about his personal life. But Ballard remembers coaxing him into telling her his birthday — which she noted he shared with Italian dictator Benito Mussolini — and had a cake delivered to his table at an AP event in San Francisco.

“He was one of my favorite people,” Ballard said.

Game studied at Drake, Northwestern and Utah State universities and served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army during the Korean conflict.

Friends and cohorts, as Game would put it, are warmly invited to attend a memorial service and reception at 11:30 on Friday, Nov. 20, at Treadway & Wigger Funeral Chapel, 623 Coombs St. in Napa.