Yip, longtime personal finance columnist, dies

Pamela Yip, a longtime personal finance columnist for the Dallas Morning News, died Sunday morning after fighting cancer for three years. She was 59.

Yip had recently taken a buyout offer from the Morning News and left the paper in September. She had been a board member of the Society of American Business Editors and Writers since 2007 and had co-chaired its annual national conference in Dallas in 2011.

“Pam was a beloved longtime board member of SABEW, where she made lasting friendships and helped promote the highest standards of business journalism,” said Joanna Ossinger, the president of SABEW and an editor at Bloomberg News. “She was always ready to offer a kind word or volunteer for a project. I’m recognizing her with the President’s Award at our Fall conference on Oct. 9.”

Yip covered personal finance and senior/aging issues for The Morning News. Yip was a fellow at SABEW’s Health Care Symposium in New York in January and in 2012 was a fellow at the National Press Foundation in Washington, D.C., where she studied retirement issues.

“Pam was joy — a good reporter and an even better person,” said assistant business editor Pete Johnson, who edited her column.  “She really loved helping people and I think that’s what made her such a good personal finance reporter.

“It’s kind of fitting that she died today when the Morning News was holding the annual financial planning hotline that she started about 15 years ago,” added Johnson. “This is an event where we bring in financial planners to take calls and offer advice to readers. We decided to continue with it after Pam got sick because we knew how important it was to her. She would have wanted that.”

She has been the personal finance columnist for the Morning News since 1999. Before that, she spent 10 years as a business reporter for the Houston Chronicle. Yip graduated from Cal State-Sacramento in 1979.

Yip was respected by other business journalists.

“She was a quiet force who worked tirelessly to serve her readers and to make journalism a valued craft,” said Seattle Times business editor Becky Bisbee.

The Financial Planning Association of Dallas-Fort Worth is honoring Yip by donating the proceeds from its annual honors dinner Thursday in her memory. The money will go to the Pamela Yip Scholarship Fund for CPA students. Memorials may made to the Pamela Yip Fund, FPA DFW, P.O. Box 261750, Plano, Texas 75026.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.