Altoona Mirror reporter Kay Stephens has covered nearly every news beat for the Mirror in her 48 years as an award-winning staff member. She plans to transition to part-time hours. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

In the summer of 1977, Penn State journalism student Kay Stephens arrived at the Mirror newsroom for a 10-week internship, and never left.

“I didn’t intend to stay in Altoona for the rest of my career,” Stephens said as she wraps up 48 years of full-time employment and transitions to part-time hours. “But I still love the job after all these years.”

In a career that has spanned nearly five decades, Stephens has covered virtually every news beat for the Mirror — school boards, police, municipal governments, breaking news, feature stories, county government and since 2016, high profile criminal cases at the Blair County Courthouse.

As her full-time employment winds down, the impact of her tenure is not lost on her colleagues.

“Kay has been an asset to the Altoona Mirror from day one,” Publisher Dan Slep said. “Words cannot express how thankful we are for the excellent work she has provided for our readers over the years. We will miss her and are hoping she doesn’t drift too far away. We might need her to help cover a story for us!”

There was no professional colleague closer to Stephens than Phil Ray, who came to the Mirror in 1965, retired from full-time work as the courthouse reporter in 2016 but has remained part-time, handling federal court cases and other assorted stories.

“Kay and I have worked together for 48 years,” Phil said. “I’ve found her a joy to work with. She’s always very gracious, easy to talk to, and we communicated on various court cases over the years in detail.”

Both Ray and Stephens have been familiar faces at the Courthouse and they regularly filled in for each other during vacations. Sometimes, their subjects would overlap, and their combined 110-plus years of Mirror experience and institutional knowledge served them and those around them — including editors — very well.

“Kay is such a calm, stable presence in the newsroom with a wealth of knowledge about the Sunshine Act, Right-to-Know law and the inner workings of county government and the election process,” Managing Editor Holly Claycomb said. “All of us have relied on her.”

In the spring when four candidates were on the primary ballot for two judicial nominations, Stephens made stops at four campaign parties for quotes and descriptions to include when writing a story reporting state Rep. Louis Schmitt and Magisterial District Judge Paula Aigner as the winners. And she finished by deadline, a daily task that’s even tougher to meet on the night of an election.

Stephens has worked hard over the years at trying to earn the public’s trust, generally by keeping readers and local taxpayers in mind as she collected information. She also educated herself on issues so she was prepared to quiz local leaders about their actions.

“As an elected official, I always appreciated that Kay tried her best to learn the facts of a situation thoroughly as possible before writing her story,” retired Blair County commissioner Donna Gority said. “She asked good questions for that purpose. I felt that she did her best to be fair to all concerned.”

Stephens said her desire for her stories to be a source of accurate and valuable information developed early in her career. She remembers covering an Altoona Area School Board meeting in the early 1980s, when a local woman chastised the school directors for how they were conducting meetings, with repetitive votes and little discussion.

“That parent,” Stephens said, “told the school board that despite regular attendance at school board meetings, she couldn’t understand what the board was doing until she read ‘what Kay Stephens wrote the next day in the Altoona Mirror.’

“I don’t think the woman intended her remark to be a compliment,” Stephens said. “But I was pleased by her comment, and I still go to local governmental meetings where it’s difficult to figure out what’s going on because little is being said.”

While newspapers and the news media have gone through many changes since her early reporting days, Stephens said that something that hasn’t changed is how news develops and the importance of local news reporting.

“Mirror reporters who regularly attend local governmental meetings put themselves in a position to learn a lot about how local communities operate. And that in turn puts them in a position to educate the readers and others,” Stephens said. “Without that kind of education, people are typically a few steps behind local leaders who set tax rates, close schools, establish a park, build a prison and handle other responsibilities on behalf of our community.

During her career, Stephens has won scores of awards for stories entered in contests sponsored by the Western Pennsylvania Press Club (Golden Quill), the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association (Keystone Award), Pennsylvania Women’s Press Association (PWPA) and the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW) and its affiliate, Pennsylvania Press Club (PPC). She also manages PPC’s contest for high school journalists.

Perhaps the most laudable award Stephens received was bestowed in 2024, when nominated for and inducted into the Wise Women of Blair County. Before roughly 300 at a banquet at The Casino at Lakemont, Stephens said she was both “honored and humbled” by the recognition.

“That was an honor that I didn’t expect and I was glad to share the night with friends and Altoona Mirror colleagues who take their work as seriously as I do,” Stephens said. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m transitioning to part-time work. I still have a nose for news and local journalism matters.”