New editor takes helm of The Leader

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Brian Kelly has been named as the new editor of the Port Townsend & Jefferson County Leader.

Kelly, a 30-year veteran of the newspaper industry, has worked for daily and non-daily newspapers in the Pacific Northwest since 1992. He comes most recently from the Bainbridge Island Review, a newspaper owned by Sound Publishing, where Kelly was the editor for the past eight years.

“I’m excited to have Brian join our team: he has been leading local newsrooms for years,” said publisher Donna Etchey. “His passion for the news and his leadership skills will be a great addition to our team.”

Kelly was born in Port Huron, Michigan, the youngest of three sons all born a year apart. His father worked in the local paper mill; his mother was a switchboard operator for Michigan Bell Telephone. Kelly joined the Army after high school, was trained as a still photographer, and spent nearly three years overseas with the 1st Infantry Division, the famed “Big Red One.”

After his time in the military, he returned home and worked as an iron cutter in a steel mill in Michigan before continuing his college education with a move west. He is a graduate of the School of Journalism at the University of Oregon, and is an insufferable, diehard Duck fan.

After college, his first journalism jobs in Washington state were as a photographer and reporter for weekly newspapers owned by Pacific Media Group in the Seattle area, followed by a seven-year stint in east King County as the editor of the Snoqualmie Valley Record, and later, as a beat reporter for the Seattle Times and the Everett Daily Herald. He left the Herald in 2005 to become editor of the South Whidbey Record on Whidbey Island.

After seven years there, he took the helm as editor of the Bainbridge paper.

“It’s a thrill to be joining such a talented team at The Leader,” Kelly said. “I look forward to hearing from the community about what they’d like to see in their paper.”