Jim Casey, a longtime journalist who worked as editor of the Sequim Gazette and two stints as a reporter with the Peninsula Daily News, died in his sleep in his Port Angeles home on Aug. 9.
He was 72.
A Celebration of Life is set for 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 22, at the Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, 1033 N. Barr Road; a potluck follows the celebration.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Ave., Montgomery, Ala. 36104, or Habitat for Humanity of Clallam County.
Casey worked in a number of newsrooms across the country, from suburban Chicago to Dayton, Ohio and Corpus Christi, Texas, and several in Washington state. He worked at the Everett Herald as a columnist, the Olympian in Olympia as a features editor, and Port Angeles, where he joined the Peninsula Daily News staff as its county government, medical and tribal reporter in October 2004.
He also worked as an instructor in business communications at a technical/vocational school in Corpus Christi for a spell in the mid-1990s.
He came to the Sequim Gazette in January 2009 and served as editor until May 2010.
In his first editorial for the Gazette, Casey noted, “It’s here where the Gazette is the audience, cheerleader, critic and town crier, the place to look for pats on the back and to find shoulders to cry on, the chronicler of everything from duplicate bridge scores to acts of heroism.
“Putting all of this in ink onto paper — and in bits and bytes onto sequimgazette.com — is an exhilarating, humbling, frightening, heart-rending, heart-warming and rib-tickling job.”
Brown Maloney, former owner of the Sequim Gazette, said Casey offered a trusted voice when it came to community news.
“Jim was a news guy from an era when real news mattered,” Maloney said.
“When he got fired up about something he could write a good editorial. Communites were better with good editorials backed up from trusted news outlets and trusted voices such as Jim Casey’s.”
Casey was also very active in the community, serving as a member of the Olympic Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, Olympic Climate Action and Compassion of Clallam County. After retiring he spent time woodworking, making canes, walking sticks, hiking staffs and pieces of art with driftwood.
Casey is survived by his wife Dana, whom he married on December of 1968 in Chicago. He is also survived by daughter Elisabeth Anne Casey of Corpus Christi, Texas; brother Steve John Casey of Los Angeles, Calif., and sister Sandra Woods of Mississippi, as well as three grandchildren.
