Alice (Kay) Potter (1919-2019)

Jul 29, 2020

Potter

Alice Katherine (Kay) Potter, journalist and spouse of former NNA President Walter Potter, was buried in Arlington (Virginia) National Cemetery Friday, July 17.
Kay died Oct. 16, 2019, of natural causes at the age of 100.

The Potters formerly owned six newspapers including four weeklies and a daily, the Culpeper (Virginia) Star-Exponent, and a daily in New Jersey. Walter was president of NNA in 1966.

The family lived in Culpeper, where Kay was elected to the town council, headed multiple civic organizations, worked as an award-winning reporter for the family's paper, raised two boys and supported her husband. Statewide, she was active in Virginia Press Women.

Born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1919, the former Kay Hudson grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, where she graduated from Hume-Fogg High School in 1935 and attended the George Peabody College for Teachers. Later she worked in Washington, D.C., where she met Walter. After they were married in 1942, Walter left for service in World War II while Kay studied at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland.

Walter and Kay moved to Naples, Florida, in 1981. In Naples, Kay was a founder and president of the Mangrove Action Group and a columnist for the Pelican Bay Post. She was named the first Pelican Bay Person of the Year.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, the family prefers donations be made to the School of Nursing at Johns Hopkins University. The School may be contacted by phone at (410) 955-4284 or on its website (http://www.nursing.jhu.edu).