Gary Henley is a longtime sports writer for The Astorian.

Early on in his time as a sports writer at The Astorian, Gary Henley wrote about Katie Cokley, a golfer for Astoria High School. As the years went by, Cokley became Sturgell and Henley got to hold her young son, Ryder, at a basketball game.

Last year, Henley watched Ryder Sturgell score a touchdown for Warrenton High School.

“That was a sign that I’ve been here a long time,” he said.

He documented Katie and Ryder’s accomplishments in the same place: the sports pages of The Astorian.

Henley is the third in a line of loyal sports reporters for the newspaper, following Grady Pannell, who held the position from 1967 to 1983, and Paul Danzer, who worked from 1986 to 1999.

Henley plans to retire in September, but he said he will still go to Friday night football games and appreciate the sports community he has served through 24 years and 30 state championship appearances.

“We will miss Gary’s institutional memory,” Derrick DePledge, the editor of The Astorian, said. “He has helped tell our region’s story — from sports to cultural events — for a generation.”

Henley grew up playing basketball and baseball with his brother, but stopped in ninth grade due to the competition at Churchill High School in Eugene. “I think the shortest guy on the basketball team was 6-foot-1, so I didn’t have much of a chance,” he said.

Instead, he kept his interest in sports alive through writing. He joined the school paper, the start of what would become an over 40-year career.

Henley said he learned to be a full-time reporter working for The Daily Emerald at the University of Oregon, in a stuffy office in the student union. He loved covering Ducks sports as he worked his way up to sports editor, but he got to explore other interests, too. He interviewed Dayton Duncan, a screenwriter noted for his work with Ken Burns, and author Garrison Keillor.

Burns played a role in Henley’s eventual move to Astoria — the filmmaker’s 1997 documentary on Lewis and Clark piqued his interest in the area. Plus, “they really like their sports up here,” he said.

Henley came to Astoria in 1999. He spent his first few months covering summer baseball games from his car, where locals prefer to sit, and immersing himself in the culture of North Coast sports.

Back then, he said, his co-workers would make fun of him for never being around. He worked late nights, often 9 p.m. to 2 a.m., waiting for coaches to call when they got home. Now, he said, coaches take pictures of their scorebooks and send it to him, and he can watch online streams of games.

Henley’s retirement comes at a time of seismic shifts in how newspapers approach sports reporting. In July, the Los Angeles Times announced it would no longer print game stories, box scores, standings and other traditional sports coverage in the newspaper. The New York Times announced that it would disband its sports department and turn to coverage from The Athletic, an online sports outlet the newspaper acquired in 2022.

Over the years, The Astorian experimented with a stand-alone sports page and a Sports Extra on Saturdays but found reader interest mixed. Now, most sports reporting appears inside the newspaper on pages next to regional news and obituaries.

Though the times and technology have changed, the community aspect — Henley’s favorite thing about reporting — is the same.

“You get to know the athletes and see their little brothers and sisters come along, and the names are always familiar,” he said. “Small communities are really tight, and they stick together and cheer for each other in their own way.”

Henley knows he won’t be able to leave that community behind and that it will take some time to adjust to being a spectator. With his free weekends, he hopes to do “tourist stuff” and explore the beaches and trails he was drawn to decades ago.

To whoever fills his shoes, he advises: “Try to spell the names right.”