This will be huge news in both papers tomorrow and all over TV: Jim Kelley has died at 87. Kelley is the type of person who is meant when the term "community leader" is bandied about. He was huge in Democratic political circles, a leading business owner for decades, someone who could make things happen just by getting involved. I heard a lot about him when I was on the board of Big Brothers & Big Sisters. The legend -- probably more fact than fiction -- was that Kelley and a handful of others just decided one day that we needed such an organization here, so they did it, and hired the first director, Frank Zirile, who was at BB&BS for a long time.
UPDATE, 6:35 p.m.: WANE-TV has just switched from the football game it was covering to another football game and is skipping, or at least delaying, its early newscast. But it does have the Kelley story on its Web site.:
Even when he was in his 70's and 80's, his influence was vast.
An understatement, I'd say.
