Lewis Grizzard

I'd say until the mid-Nineties or so, virtually all major metros and most mid-size papers had one or more humor/ soft features /human interest columnists, and even down to dinky dailies and weeklies, somebody usually tried to do it.
(The big time big-league papers often had several.)
People with a personal style that meshed with that concept could build up pretty solid local followings. Grizzard had a hell of a run with his version.