Allan W. Cromley, a retired Washington bureau chief for the biggest newspaper in Oklahoma and a former president of the National Press Club and the Gridiron Club, died Aug. 8 at his home in Falls Church, Va. He was 89 and had complications from pneumonia.

Cromley came to Washington in 1953 as the bureau chief for the Daily Oklahoman (now the Oklahoman) and its now-defunct afternoon publication, the Oklahoma City Times.

Traditionally, the Washington assignment had been rotated every few years, but Cromley never expressed a desire to return to Oklahoma, and the editors never summoned him back. He spent 34 years running the bureau in the nation’s capital.

He witnessed and wrote about many of the major news events of the second half of the 20th century, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the 1954 shootings on the floor of the House of Representatives by a group of Puerto Rican nationalists, and the rise of the space program.

For readers back home in Oklahoma, he wrote about legislation and policy decisions affecting agriculture and energy, and he covered the Oklahoma representatives in the House and Senate.

Officially, Cromley retired from the Oklahoman in 1987, but he continued to work part time for nine more years.