Former Mercer Island Reporter publisher Peggy Reynolds passed away Friday, Feb. 12 at age 91. Reynolds was a longtime cancer survivor, battling throat cancer since 2000.
Reynolds served as editor and publisher of the Mercer Island Reporter from 1967 until 1986.
Daughter-in-law Val Sanford told the Reporter that Reynolds died at home on Mercer Island, just as she preferred.
“She loved her home on Mercer Island and loved being part of the community,” Sanford said. “She loved local politics and felt the newspaper had a responsibility to dig in and figure out what was going on.”
Born Marjorie Louise Weiss on Sept. 24, 1925 in Takoma Park Maryland, Reynolds earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and worked as a reporter for the Washington Post. She married George Richard “Dick” Reynolds in 1954, becoming a Coast Guard wife. They lived in Hawaii, Virginia and Florida before moving to the Pacific Northwest.
Upon Dick’s retirement, the family moved to Mercer Island in 1966, where Reynolds became the editor of the Mercer Island Reporter for nearly two decades, winning numerous awards for community newspapers. She was an accomplished photographer, earning two Kodak awards. She traveled the world, read voraciously and loved local politics. She worked along with the community to create Pioneer Park and to secure a safer I-90 bridge. Reynolds used the written word to inform, educate, entertain and connect the Mercer Island community.
Nancy Gould-Hilliard, who worked under Reynolds from 1975 until 1985, called that period the “most intense decade” of Reynolds’ 19-year reign.
“The community was in a growth and development spurt, and needed some TLC,” Gould-Hilliard said in an email to the Reporter. “Peggy had a formula for so doing, yet still [won] awards for journalistic excellence.”
Gould-Hilliard said through Reynolds’ editorial persuasion, the newspaper had a hand and voice in various Island issues, including the 1970 town-city annexation, park and environmental preservation, redesign of the I-90 freeway, passage of school bonds and levies, business center beautification and historical commemoration. The first “Mercerversary” in 1984 celebrated 25 years since the city’s founding, and morphed into today’s Summer Celebration.
Reynolds had a passion for music and was a skilled pianist, as well as a longtime season-ticket holder to the Seattle Opera and the Seattle Symphony. Former Reporter writer and illustrator Andrea Lorig said working under Reynolds served as the beginning of a cherished friendship.
“Aside from assignments covering Island businesses, events and issues, Peggy allowed us a crack at subjects we thought up with varying degrees of success,” Lorig said in an email to the Reporter. “Thus it was that I covered everything from interviews with celebrity dogs, cats and ponies to bird guides, book reviews, retiring filling station owners, eccentric developers, bugs, moles and more. Dorothy Parker would have fit right in.”
Reynolds leaves behind her son, Michael Reynolds, and her daughter-in-law Val Sanford, both of Ballard, Washington, a step-daughter, Judy Beauchamp in Stockton, California, niece Linda Weiss and nephew Rick Weiss and their families.
Sanford said the family is planning a memorial service on Mercer Island sometime in March. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to AAUW Washington Tech Trek Program, Seattle Girls’ School, or the Humane Society.
