Beloved Local Journalist Nancy Jack Passes at Age 80
Longtime local journalist Nancy Jack passed away early the morning of Dec. 7 in her home. Professionally active until the final weeks of her life, Nancy was 80 years old.
Destined to be remembered for her “ruminations” on life, Nancy Jack entertained readers with whimsical tales of her canoeing adventures, her cat Walter (and later, Chris) and her humorous, often curmudgeonly outake on politics and consumer issues in her weekly columns in various area newspapers.
Nancy Jack began her career as a cub reporter for the Kansas City Kansan in the 1950s. She was the first female reporter/photographer in the Kansas City area. Later, she moved to the Parkville area and worked for (and later owned) both the Platte County Gazette and Southern Platte Press. Serving as Parkville’s foremost reporter, she often garnered international fame — she usually could be seen on major network newscasts whenever Parkville experienced a flood.
Though semi-retired (she often wrote for local newsletters), Nancy Jack returned to local journalism in 2004 with the launch of The Parkville Luminary. From the onset of The Luminary’s publication, Nancy Jack sought to dispense truth and challenge popular notions: Her inauguaral column in the paper called on readers to learn the difference between luminaria and luminaries (luminaria being the candlelit holiday decoration; a luminary being a celebrity, noted individual or local Parkville newspaper).
Nancy Jack went on to regularly report on municipal affairs and established a reputation as being the only dedicated southern Platte County journalist around — Nancy Jack was often the only reporter amidst the first responders in the area, thanks to her dedicated listening to the area police scanner from her home. Typically, whenever Nancy Jack heard an alert on the scanner, she would go outside to start her ’70s-era, brown GMC truck, head back inside and take notes from the scanner while it warmed up, then drive to the incident — often meeting emergency personnel at the same moment and capturing a timely photograph.
Nancy Jack also served as the co-host of “The Luminary Hour” on 90.3 FM, where she was often prompted to comment on random local, national and international news without warning or rehearsal to deliberately hilarious effect.
“Nancy Jack achieved something that most people can never achieve — she was the best at what she did. She was truly and totally 100 percent a ‘reporter,’” Luminary Publisher Mark Vasto said. “She devoted most of her life to the service of delivering the news and telling it ‘like it is.’ She really had no peer…she was uniquely great.”
“Nancy Jack was many things to many people. To me she was a friend, a really good reporter, and the self-appointed supreme arbiter of the English language,” said longtime Parkville City Clerk Barbara Lance.
“I valued her friendship, admired her writing skills, and much enjoyed that third aspect of her personality - her mission to preserve the king’s English. In these days when so many people — even those in the communications business — misspell, twist, mangle, fancify, and otherwise abuse the written word, it was a pleasure to hear Nancy correcting someone’s misuse of it. Even if that someone was me,” Lance said.
In addition to journalism, Nancy Jack’s other love was the environment. She was the founding president of the Kansas City chapter of the Sierra Club and a charter member of the Ozark Wilderness Waterways Club. Each Labor Day for 45 years, Nancy would travel to the Ozarks for a river cleanup canoe trip.
In 2004, Nancy Jack was honored with a Parkville civic service award by the Parkville Board of Aldermen.
Nancy Jack suffered a hip fracture while trying to remove her canoe from her truck on a fall canoing excursion. During her hospital stay and subsequent replacement hip surgery, doctors discovered Nancy Jack suffered from an agressive form of lung cancer. Extensively cared for by her immediate family, Nancy passed away peacefully at her home about 7:30 a.m. Friday, Dec. 7.
Nancy Jack desired to be cremated, and her family will offer a “Celebration of Life” for Nancy on Sunday, Dec. 16, at the Hawthorn House off of Bell Road. Services will begin at 7 p.m. and visitors are welcome to bring a potluck of food and snacks to the event.
Written memorials of Nancy Jack are welcomed at nancy@parkvilleluminary.com.