BEMIDJI - Kelly Stone, formerly the news director for Paul Bunyan Broadcasting, has died, the company reported Friday. She was 52.
Stone was diagnosed with Stage IV ovarian cancer in 2011. After a brief remission she learned it returned in 2013.
“When I was first diagnosed ... I would go out walking, and I would find myself just staring at the ground,” she told the Bemidji Pioneer in October. “All of the sudden I realized, ‘This is not good. Look up, let’s look at the people who are walking by, the kids that are having fun, laughing ... realize that there’s other people out there.’ ”
Stone graduated from Bemidji State University with a degree in mass communications and acquired a career’s worth of reporting as a radio, TV and print journalist for news outlets all across the Midwest, including stops in Fargo and Grand Forks, where she worked for Agweek during the late 1990’s until 2007.
“Initially I thought I was going to be a newspaper reporter, but the job openings were just a little more plentiful in radio when I graduated,” she said in 2013.
ADVERTISEMENT
In 2010, Stone began working as the news director at Paul Bunyan Broadcasting. Her last day at work was April 30.
“It’s going to be a chronic thing, probably for the rest of my life,” she told the Pioneer then about her cancer battle. “We phrase our goals in very simple terms: ‘I want to be able to work, I want to be able to do things with my family, so let’s see if we can find a combination of treatments that will allow me to do that for as long as possible.’ ”
Funeral arrangements are pending with Olson-Schwartz Funeral Home.
