Richard “Dick” Kelly was a graduate of Hagerstown High School, attended Hagerstown Junior College and the American Press Institute at Columbia University.

At Hagerstown High, Dick lettered in basketball, baseball and football as player and manager from 1937-39. He was the leading scorer in the 1938-39 season on the Hubs basketball team, which went 15-7 under coach Eddie Semler.

Kelly played on numerous amateur and semi-pro basketball teams before World War II, including the Hagerstown YMCA, which won the Tri-State ‘Y’ championship in 1940. He played basketball in service with the Cortland, Ala., Air Corps team in Southeast Training Command.

After Dick completed the Armed Forces Institute course in news writing, he was hired as sports editor for the Hagerstown Daily Mail in 1946. Kelly was Daily Mail editor for the next 39 years until his retirement in 1985.

As sports editor for 21 years, Dick wrote a daily sports column, “Spotlight on Sports,” and was very active in promoting and publicizing local sports and sports figures. He worked closely with organizers of county Little League programs in baseball, basketball, football and bowling.

Kelly did play-by-play radio broadcasts of Waynesboro High School and Waynesboro Tigers football games for WJEJ. From 1950-55, he did public address announcing for Hagerstown Braves and Hagerstown Packers home games at Municipal Stadium. Dick did the daily morning news broadcast on WJEJ from the Daily Mail newsroom during the 1950s.

Dick Kelly received various sports writing honors from the Maryland. Delaware and D.C. Press Association for several columns appearing in “Spotlight on Sports.” He was promoted to news editor in 1967, and assistant managing editor in 1983.

Dick was a past member of the Hagerstown Park Board and the Washington County Golf Corporation, which supervised the construction of Black Rock Golf Course and then took charge of the county-owned public golf facility.

Dick was an avid golfer since his caddying days at Fountain Head Country Club more than 50 years ago.