Former Press Democrat reporter Frank Herbert wrote ‘Dune’ in 1965

Years before Frank Herbert wrote “Dune,” the popular sci-fi thriller recently adapted for the big screen a second time, he was a Press Democrat reporter with a flair for the dramatic.

A Washington state native, Herbert was hired in 1949 as a reporter for The Press Democrat when he was about 29 years old. While working at the newspaper in the early 1950s, his interview with two children who hid under a blanket during riots at Los Guilicos School for Girls received plenty of attention after being published by several wire services.

Herbert was “often teased by his PD colleagues for his propensity to embellish routine automobile accidents and house fires more than his editors felt necessary,” columnist Gaye LeBaron wrote in 2017.

One of Herbert’s early Press Democrat stories, “14-year-old Bride Misses Death by Hair’s Breadth!”, chronicled a collision that left a teenage girl with head lacerations. She jumped from her 16-year-old husband’s truck before he came to a stop and was struck by an oncoming car, Herbert reported. Much of the story focused on how her hair became caught under the car’s front wheels.

Another, published in 1950, highlighted Herbert’s frustration that there were two Frank and Beverly Herberts who lived in Santa Rosa. He was upset that he and his wife received phone calls and mail that belonged to the other couple, who had since moved to Eureka.

“I think I’ll go change my name to Framisanell Gortersnarp,” he wrote. “But I’d probably find somebody living with the same name next door.”

Herbert left The Press Democrat in 1954 to briefly work for the San Francisco Examiner. He transitioned from journalist to fiction writer in 1955 when he published his first novel “Dragon of the Sea.”

“Dune,” whose latest movie remake starring Timothée Chalamet was released Friday, first was published as a novel in 1965. The book had several sequels.

Herbert did return once to Santa Rosa after he left The Press Democrat for a sci-fi convention in 1975 at El Rancho, where Costco is now.

Herbert died of cancer in 1986 at the age of 65 at a Wisconsin hospital.