Published 5:23 pm Wednesday, November 27, 2024 By Staff Reports By Phill Casaus Special to the Democrat After half a century of journalism excellence, one of Natchez’s best Ollie Reed Jr. died Tuesday, Nov. 19, in New Mexico.
He is survived by his sister Patricia Yost of Louisiana and brother Rick Reed of Alabama. Ollie Reed Jr. was a 1966 graduate of Cathedral High School, where he was active in Cathedral track, basketball and football.
His classmate Charles Garrity remembers Ollie Reed Jr. as a “quiet, not outgoing but not shy gentleman who would do anything for anybody.” “I never thought of him going into journalism,” Garrity said.
“He put others ahead of himself and he was a good Christian person. He lived out those Christian values all his life.” According to his brother Rick, they both worked at The Natchez Democrat.
Rick Reed worked as an advertising artist when Ollie Reed Jr. began his Journalism career at his hometown newspaper in 1973. In 1976 he was lured to the Southwest by The Albuquerque Tribune, where through the years he served as a City Hall beat reporter, sports writer, theater critic, columnist, arts editor and we-need-a-great-story specialist until the afternoon daily closed in February 2008.
Following The Trib’s demise, Reed was out of journalism for seven years until he hooked on with the Journal, where his work chronicled New Mexico’s dual personalities: the easily understood and the absolutely inexplicable. Ollie Reed Jr.’s writing .