Friday, February 07, 2014

Kathy Lally aka Lilly

covering Sochi Olympics

Retired BJ reporter Charlene Nevada, who is enjoying the relative warmth of their Garden City, South Carolina second home with husband Art Krummel (compared to their Tallmadge residence's Northeast Ohio winter temperature), sends along this email:

John, 

The alums might want to know that alum Kathy Lally (formerly Kathy Lilly) is reporting for the Washington Post from Sochi.  Kathy and her husband, Will Englund, shared the Moscow bureau job for the Baltimore Sun for several years. 

Then she went to the Post back home. I’m not sure if she and Will are both at the Post now or who he works for.  Kathy’s writing is as right-on as ever.

(Kathy, btw, was the cousin of the late BJ reporter, Chuck Lally.)

charlene

Indeed, Char, Kathy is busy exposing Russia's mad dash to get everything ready for the Olympics, including putting lamps into the hotel rooms.

Kathy regularly had Page A1 stories during her days at the BJ. She had a knack of calling the families of Vietnam War casualties and having them pour their hearts out to her. It also helped "put a face on" the Vietnam War, making it personal instead of just statistics and ideology. She left the Beacon about 1975, near the time that U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war ended.

After her divorce from Bill Lilly,  she went back to using her maiden name of Kathy Lally and has an impressive career in journalism.

Kathy had a voluntary buyout at the Baltimore Sun, where she was education reporter, features editor, Moscow bureau reporter and deputy foreign editor; and was deputy business editor at the Washington Post. 

Will, who left  the Sun in 2008 to cover the White House for the National Journal, won a Pulitzer for exposing how the Navy disposed of out-dated ships. 

Will and Kathy have two daughters --  Kate, photo editor for Getty Images in New York, and  Molly, who graduated from Emerson in theater. If you don't recognize Kathy from the photo in this article, check out the face of Molly in the blue dress. That's the Kathy image I remember from our State Desk days together.

If you want to read Kathy's story from the Winter Olympics at Sochi, click on  

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