John Kady

John Kady was employed by United Press International for 34 years and says “I never worked a day in my life.”

His twenty-one dollars a month from the GI Bill helped him get through West Virginia University. Flunking an early accounting course sent him in search of a new major. He chose journalism. Upon graduation in May 1959, he went to work for United Press International, the wire service that his college newspaper had subscribed to. He started as a general assignment reporter in Charleston, West Virginia.

One of the first assignments he was given was to follow a little-known Massachusetts Senator who was in the coal fields of West Virginia in his quest for the Democratic nomination for the presidency -- John F. Kennedy. Jumping into a press car, Kady found himself sandwiched between national reporters Bob Considine and David Brinkley.

John later served as bureau manager and state editor in Baltimore, Maryland, and bureau manager in Louisville, Kentucky. In 1967 he arrived in Columbus, Ohio, as bureau manager. His wife encouraged him to get settled in one location so they didn’t have to disrupt the education of their two young daughters.

For the next 23 years he was back and forth between the Columbus bureau manager and Ohio state editor, often writing as well as overseeing coverage of politics, elections, football and basketball championships, disasters and other general news. Changes in technology and financial turmoil and the loss of his long-time staffers to other jobs propelled him into sales for Ohio, then the Midwest, and later as vice president of national sales, a position he held when he retired in 1994 as UPI’s financial picture looked bleak.

He loved the opportunities journalism afforded him and decided his job was more fun that work.

After retiring, he kept writing, doing some freelancing and book writing. He has authored “A Sentry’s Saga on Okinawa” and From Kennedy to Kent State: A Reporter's Notebook. He is working on a book about his experience of covering Muhammad Ali in Louisville. .