TUCSON, Ariz. — When Jane Kay was reporting on child labor in the Arizona desert, few could predict how her stories on pesticides would evolve over the decades.

Now as an environmental reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle, Kay hasn't stopped at just pesticides. She's seen polar bears in the Arctic, written a series on contaminated water in Tucson and watched the science of global warming change drastically over the years.

"It’s always new," Kay said. "There are always new stories to write."

Kay began her journalistic journey after she graduated from the University of Arizona. After spending some time in Boston, she found herself back in Tucson, as a features reporter at the Arizona Daily Star in the late 1960s.

It was the story about child labor in El Mirage, Ariz., that sparked her interest in the environment.

"I was doing a story on children, they were 8 years old or so," Kay recalled, "and they were tying green onions in the fields and that’s when I started thinking about the pesticides overhead and the crop dusters and the barrels of chemicals."

Soon after that story, she asked her editors at the Star if she could create an environmental beat. At first she reported "quite intensely" on pesticides before expanding coverage to the copper smelters near the Mexican border and herbicides on mesquite trees.

"It was very broad, the subject matter of Arizona," Kay said.

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In 1985, she started writing about contaminated water in the Southside of Tucson. She discovered the presence of trichloroethylene, an industrial solvent, that could be traced back to Hughes Aircraft Company and the Tucson airport.

"That was I think the most ambitious story I’ve ever written," Kay said. "That was a yearlong investigation. I interviewed, gosh, it was more than 500 people who worked on the Southside of Tucson."

Cynthia Hubert, a long time friend of Kay’s and senior writer for the Sacramento Bee, helped her research the story during Hubert’s time at the Star and has since been impressed with her body of work.

“She is and was one of the most principled and most passionate people I’ve ever known — passionate about the business and about using journalism to educate people and enlighten people and I think more than anything, be a voice for people who don’t have a voice,” Hubert said of Kay. “That’s what I observed from her day-to-day and learned from her.”

Hubert added that during that time she learned what it means to be a “real reporter.”

And Hubert wasn’t the only one impressed with the outcome of the story. Kay received the Don Bolles Memorial Award for Investigative Reporting, the Edward J. Meeman Award from the Scripps Howard Foundation and the national Sigma Delta Chi Award for Public Service in 1986 for the series.

“That was quite the big story,” Kay said, adding that she’s never worked on something of its magnitude since.

Shortly after the series ran, the San Francisco Examiner — now the Chronicle — offered her the environmental beat in 1986. She still holds that position today.

A former editor of Kay’s at the Chronicle, Audrey Cooper, said she was impressed by the fact that Kay has stayed humble throughout her career and is “entirely ego-less,” adding that her commitment to her beat is rare.

“Anyone who can do what she’s been doing for 30-plus years has a pretty awesome dedication to what she’s writing about,” Cooper said. “It’s extremely unusual to find one person that has a specialty like that for so long.”

Throughout her time as an environmental reporter, Kay said she has seen remarkable advances in science — especially the science of global warming — and that the increased public awareness of such issues can be attributed to that.

Recent Recognition for Jane Kay 2007 Society of Environmental Journalists, Outstanding Beat Reporting, First Place 2006 Society of Professional Journalists, Northern California Chapter, Explanatory Journalism 2003 Society of Professional Journalists. Northern California Chapter, Career Achievement Award 2001 California Newspapers Publishers Association, Environmental Reporting, Second Place 2000 The Bay Institute of San Francisco, Harold Gilliam Award for Excellence in Environmental Reporting, From the Sierra to the Sea

“It’s not just guesswork anymore,” she said. “We’ve realized that the bulk of scientists in these fields … are all contributing to this work.

“I really think that’s what underlies the change in the public, and as a result of the change of the public, the change on the part of newspapers.”

She added that she used to be the only one reporting on the environment, opposed to now when almost every desk at the Chronicle has reporters specializing in the area.

But even though the industry has changed over time, to her friends and former coworkers, Kay’s dedication is unwavering.

“She’s a lot smarter than anyone I know, and she, I think, has changed a lot of people’s lives through her work,” Hubert said.

“I don’t see that frequently in this profession unfortunately,” she added.