Nancye Moncrief Phillips, a well-known Kentucky and Cincinnati newspaper reporter, died Sunday at the age of 78.
She was a star Holmes High School Student with a special love of classical languages, but a summer job at The Kentucky Post led to her life calling.
Nancye Phillips and husband, Michael (Photo provided)
Editor Vance Trimble spotted her talent and agreed with her determination to do well in what then was a man’s occupation. After she graduated from Hanover College, he hired her full-time and sent her off to cover a session of the Kentucky legislature. She established herself as a good writer who was accurate, fair and funny to boot – unless you tried to lie to her. Many a politician learned that lesson, but the honest ones respected her.
She later transferred to The Cincinnati Post and covered City Hall.
She met her husband, Mike Phillips, there. He later became managing editor of The Kentucky Post until E.W. Scripps sent him to run a struggling suburban paper in Hollywood, Fl. She took a job with the Miami News covering medical and aging issues and wrote extensively about what then was the new hospice care movement.
When her husband moved on to be editor of The Sun, a newspaper that covers the western side of Puget Sound, she became a freelance writer and joined a local hospice run by volunteers and one RN. She took care of hospice patients there for 10 years until Scripps brought her husband back to the corporate office. She volunteered for several years with St. Elizabeth Hospice and also held scores of volunteer posts at Christ Church Cathedral.
When she died of a rare brain lymphoma, she was in the home care of an old friend: St. Elizabeth Hospice.
Survivors include her husband, Michael, a sister-in-law, Lynda, and a large Boone County family, named Meiman, of cousins and their children, with whom she’s been very close all her life.
There will be a celebration of her life at Christ Church Cathedral after COVID restrictions have been lifted from churches.
Nancye Phillips was indeed a remarkable woman–intelligent, witty, with a zest for life that touched so many people in her career and volunteer work. she will be missed.