Former longtime Union-Tribune city columnist Diane Bell — who chronicled San Diego through the region’s interesting personalities and quirky happenings — was honored with the Harold Keen Special Award last week by the San Diego Press Club.

Bell, who retired from the paper in July after a 40-plus-year career here, accepted the prize Oct. 3 at the organization’s 50th annual Excellence in Journalism Awards gala.

The award, named after a man widely considered to be the dean of San Diego journalism, is given to a journalist who “has gone above and beyond for the sake of fairness and truth telling,” according to the Press Club. Keen came to San Diego in 1936 and reported for the San Diego Sun and later the San Diego Union, then served as contributing editor of San Diego Magazine and editorial director at KFMB. He died in 1981.

Previous recipients of the award nominated Bell for the honor this year.

Bell started as a reporter at the Union-Tribune after graduating from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and went on to serve in many roles in the newsroom, including as editor of the opinion pages and an editorial writer. But she became a true household byline in 1995 with her B1 column about the people, places and happenings of San Diego County, three days a week.

With a famously deep Rolodex of contacts and her ear to the ground, Bell knew the who’s who of San Diego and what they were up to. But her columns also frequently touched on the lives of everyday San Diegans, sharing their triumphs and tragedies.

“Everyone had a story,” she told gala attendees while accepting her award. “I just had to ask enough questions and do enough research to find it.”

After 4,000 columns, she can say she did.