Michael Storey, 41-Year Veteran of Democrat-Gazette, Dies at 69

Michael Storey

Michael Storey, the longtime television columnist and associate editor at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, died Sunday at his home in Little Rock, the paper’s managing editor announced Monday in a note to the staff. He was 69.

For more than 40 years, Storey was a stalwart at the paper and its forerunner, the Arkansas Democrat, providing words, artwork and a steady, wry presence in the newsroom.

His column Otus the Head Cat viewed the world from a particularly quirky and humorous cat’s eye.

No cause of death was revealed Monday morning, but the Democrat-Gazette said he was reported to have died in his sleep, while napping. A friend on the staff said he was discovered in a favorite chair. He had no publicly known recent health issues, though he had undergone heart bypass surgery two decades ago.

More: Go here to see a full obituary and funeral information.

“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such devastating news,” Bailey, a colleague of Storey’s for decades, wrote in an all-staff email. “There will never be another like him.”

Storey’s widow, Celia Storey, is the newspaper’s ActiveStyle editor, according to its website, and like her husband is one of the newspaper’s longest-serving employees. Storey began his career at the paper in 1977 and quickly became a fixture at the upstart Democrat, which would eventually subsume its longtime competitor, the older and more decorated Arkansas Gazette.

In those newspaper war days, when the Democrat was led by Editor John Robert Starr, the Storeys were front-line soldiers, though low-key in approach, and constant sources of content for a paper eager to compete.

Storey was a U.S. Air Force veteran, having served from 1970 to 1974. In addition to his TV coverage and Otus, which appeared on Saturdays, he also wrote Happy Trails, a column about the state’s many hiking paths.