Dale Champion, a Chronicle reporter from 1956 to 1989 who wrote extensively about the environment, died Thursday in San Francisco after a brief illness at age 81. Carl T. Hall’s obit of Champion noted:

He was also known, both in and out of the newsroom, as a man with many opinions, most of them voiced. In 1975, he led a short-lived resistance movement against electric typewriters in the newsroom, complaining to management that the clattering at deadline made it impossible for him to hear anyone talking on the phone.

Champion became ill during a camping trip in Yosemite National Park with his longtime friend and colleague, Chronicle reporter Carl Nolte.