Irene Nolan, 70, co-owner and editor of the online newspaper The Island Free Press, based in Hatteras, died last night in Sentara Norfolk General Hospital where she had been a patient for several days.
Nolan was a veteran journalist who edited The Island Breeze on Hatteras for 16 years after 22 years as a reporter and editor at The Courier-Journal, a statewide newspaper based in Louisville, Ky. She was managing editor of the newspaper for the last five years of her tenure there, and during that time the newspaper staff won a Pulitzer Prize for general news reporting on a church bus crash, caused by a drunk driver, that killed 27 people, most of them children.
A Frisco resident, Nolan lived in Brigand’s Bay since 1991, and The Island Free Press, the first online paper for Hatteras and Ocracoke, made its debut on Sept. 5, 2007. In addition to being the publisher, editor and a reporter, she wrote a popular weekly blog called Shooting the Breeze.
The Ocracoke Observer collaborates with the Island Free Press. To visit the site, click here.
Funeral arrangements are not yet available.
