CANAAN VALLEY, W.Va — Timothy M. Kelly, a retired newspaper executive and member of AARP’s Board of Directors, will participate in the editorial board discussion at WVPA Convention 2014.
The editorial board program — part newspaper industry training exercise and part AARP policy review — brings AARP representatives and West Virginia newspaper editors together for a discussion of AARP’s viewpoint on national issues that will impact West Virginia’s population.
Kelly was appointed to the all-volunteer, 22-member AARP board of directors in May 2012. The board is the governing body of AARP and approves all policies, programs, activities and services for AARP’s millions of members. Part of the board’s duties are to determine the associations’s state and national legislative policy agenda and to set policy that guides the association’s strategic plans and activities.
But based on his professional resume, Kelly would be comfortable on either side of the table.
In 2011, Kelly ended a 46-year career in journalism, retiring after serving for 15 year as president and publisher of the Lexington Herald-Leader. He had also served a period as executive editor for the Lexington, Ky., publication.
His 46-year journalism career began at 17 as a part-time sportswriter for his hometown newspaper, the Daily Independent in Ashland. By age 25, he was executive sports editor for the Philadelphia Inquirer. He also held leadership roles at the Dallas Times Herald, The Denver Post, the Los Angeles Daily News and The Orange County (Calif.) Register before returning to Lexington in 1989 as executive editor.
The Denver Post and Orange County Register won Pulitzer Prizes while Kelly was managing editor.
At the Herald-Leader, Kelly won the Ida B. Wells Award for diversity achievements in the news industry; two individual Excellence Awards from Knight Ridder, the paper’s previous corporate parent; and the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s White Ribbon Project recognizing “Men Helping End Violence Against Women.”
