Warren Elly, a veteran Florida reporter who worked nearly thirty years at Tampa Fox station WTVT, died on Monday. He was 64. Elly, who retired four years ago, had been blogging about his struggle with a rare adrenal cancer that had metastasized.
“I spent 40 years telling the stories of life and death, the triumphs, the tragedies from inside scores of courtrooms, to more than a hundred rockets’ red glare,” Elly wrote on his website. In March, he wrote of his decision to stop chemotherapy. “I don’t at all consider this ‘giving up’ by a long shot…there’s plenty of challenges ahead. The difference is Lona and I will be sharing our little lifeboat for as long as God would have us.”
Former WTVT news director Ray Blush told the Tampa Bay Times few reporters could dig up a story like Warren Elly:
“I can’t tell you how many times Warren would be talking with the assignment desk, and there would be no assignment for him,” Blush said. “He would say, ‘Well, I’ll just go out and snoop around.’ And more often than not, he would come back and end up with the lead story of the day.”