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Valda Cooper

American journalist

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 6, 2023
Entity authorityQ7909343
Source-derived summary

Valda Margaret Cooper LavenderValda Cooper (November 15, 1915 – April 12, 2008) was an American journalist and reporter. She was considered to be one of the first women to report on hard news for the Associated Press. She was also reported for a number of publications in New Mexico, including the Farmington Daily Times. Cooper also served as the managing editor of the Farmington Daily Times during her 40-year reporting career.

Cooper was once quoted as proclaiming, "I've got printer's ink in my veins."

Early life

Valda Cooper was born in Melbourne, Australia, on November 15, 1915. She moved to the United States from Australia with her parents when she was just an infant.

Career

Cooper began her career in newspaper journalism at the Borger Herald in Borger, Texas. She worked as a staff member at the Borger Herald for nine years before joining the Associated Press' Bureau in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1943. She was the first woman to work at the New Mexican AP staff. There she covered the political proceedings at the New Mexico State Legislature, including the New Mexico Senate, and the New Mexico State Capitol as a night editor for the AP.

In 1945, Cooper married United States Marines Staff Sergeant Dave Cooper, who was originally from Lansdowne, Pennsylvania, while the New Mexican State Legislature was in session.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Valda Cooper” as american journalist. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1915, 2008, 1943, 1945—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1915-11-15. The account is most persuasive where Valda, Cooper and American can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as american journalist. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q7909343. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1915, 2008, 1943 and 1945.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Valda Cooper”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Valda Cooper primary sources, Valda Cooper archive and Valda research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Valda Cooper”?
  2. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Valda Cooper” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.