About Joe Kelly

Joe Kelly has more than 30 years of professional writing experience, including 20 years at the Utica Observer-Dispatch, first as a reporter, then as a columnist, the first full time columnist in the newspaper’s history. In December of 2001, he purchased the Boonville Herald & Adirondack Tourist in Boonville, N.Y. and writes a weekly column for the newspaper.

He hosts “The Joe Kelly Show,” broadcast weekly on WUTR, an ABC television station in Utica, NY. He also hosts a variety of special programs at WUTR.

Joe is an organizer of the Boilermaker Road Race, the biggest 15-K race in the United States, and serves as vice president of the Boilermaker’s board of directors. He is one of the founders of the National Distance Running Hall of Fame in Utica and served as its first executive director.

He has run races throughout the United States, including nine marathons, and was one of those selected to carry the Olympic Flame as part of the Torch Relay Run leading up to the Olympic Games held in Atlanta in 1996. Joe is a member of the Utica Roadrunners, Roman Runners and is a founding member of the North Country “Toe” Path Trekkers in Boonville, NY. In 2004, he was selected by the Alzheimer’s Association to be honorary chairman of Central New York’s Memory Walk and Run.

Joe is now at work on his seventh book, “I Used To Think I’d Live Forever, But Now I’m Not So Sure,” a memoir. Joe has hosted talk shows on Utica radio stations.

Before beginning his journalism career, Joe was an administrative assistant to State Senator James H. Donovan and before that was an assistant to Utica Mayor Michael Caruso.

He was appointed Oneida County’s official historian by County Executive Ralph Eannace in 1997 and served in that position until 1999. On Oct. 26, 2004, Joe became a member of the Oneida County Historical Society’s Board of Trustees.

In 2005, Joe was selected by the Oneida County Historical Society as a “Living Legend,” joining the likes of Dr. Ted Max, John Stetson, New York State Assemblywoman Roann Destito, Earle Reed, Dr. Peter Cayan, Frank Tomaino, and Sister Rose Vincent, among others, who have been honored by the Society for community service.

Joe is on the board of directors of the Boonville-Oneida County Fair and the Oneida County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Joe has been honored numerous times for his civic work in behalf of organizations that include the Boilermaker, American Heart Association, Salvation Army, National Center For Missing & Exploited Children, Utica Roadrunners Club, Association of Retarded Citizens, State University of New York, and he is a Rotary Club Paul Harris Fellow. Joe is on the organizing committee of Utica’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade and is a past grand marshal of the parade.