I learned last week from my friend Elizabeth Gould that the “Voice of Cotuit,” Sean Kelly, has passed away. I met Sean in June of this year (2014) at the Cotuit Library after I gave a talk on Colonial Barnstable as part of the town’s 375th birthday celebration. Sean sat right in front and afterwards complimented me with an awesome baritone voice right out of radio. I had no idea about his career as a broadcast journalist, but a few weeks later heard the voice again when I watched the Barnstable Land Trust’s video about the campaign to save the woods around Lowell Park, the baseball field of the Cotuit Kettleers. Sean narrated that piece by Maryjo Wheatley, giving it an impact that only a great narrator can.
From his memoir, this biography:
“Sean Kelly covered rebel conflicts in Africa, civil wars in Indochina, peace talks in the Middle East and the downfall of the President of the United States in Washington.He was ambushed in Zimbabwe and death-listed in El Salvador. But not all of his career was spent chasing chaos. He also went to the Seychelles Islands to report on the first flight of the Space Shuttle and to South Africa for the presidential campaign and election of Nelson Mandela.
Between deadlines, there was time for humor, compassion, good food and wine, even romance along the way.
Born and raised in California, Kelly reported for the Voice of America, the Associated Press and several other new organizations during a forty-year professional career in journalism. He worked in print, radio and television. His books include “Access Denied: the Politics of Press Censorship’, and “America’s Tyrant: the CIA and Mobutu of Zaire”.
He and his wife Helen Picard divide the year between Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Cape Town, South Africa.”
Here’s the Cotuit video which Sean narrated for the Barnstable Land Trust: