Longtime Gazette-Mail reporter, columnist Sandy Wells dies

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Sandy Wells, a reporter and columnist for the Charleston Gazette and Gazette-Mail for more than half a century, died Saturday at the age of 77, after fighting cancer for more than a year.

Wells was best known in recent years for her “Innerviews” column, which she continued after retiring from her other duties as a reporter. The column’s first-person style, where she asked questions and let her subjects tell their own life stories, came about when former Gazette Editor Don Marsh noted he liked the first-person columns written by journalist Studs Terkel. Wells tried a couple, and suggested it become a weekly feature.