Iris Kelso

Iris Kelso
Iris Kelso
Born	December 10, 1926; New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Philadelphia High School; Ward-Belmont Junior College; Randolph-Macon Women's College
Occupation(s)	Journalist:; Political columns; Human-interest essays; Television commentary
Years active	1948-1996
Political party	Democrat
Spouse	Robert N. Kelso (married 1960–1972, his death)

Iris Turner Kelso (December 10, 1926 – November 2, 2003) was a

New Orleans Times-Picayune

.

Background

Iris Turner was born in

Virginia, where she majored in English

.

She returned to Mississippi in 1948 to work on the staff of the Hattiesburg American in Hattiesburg in southern Mississippi. Though she covered small-town news in Hattiesburg, her interest lay in politics. Her family had long been active in reform Democratic politics; indeed Homer Turner had been a colonel on the staff of Governor Hugh L. White of Mississippi, who served from 1936 to 1940 and again from 1952 to 1956.^[1]

Journalist in New Orleans

Encouraged by her editor in Hattiesburg, she moved to New Orleans in 1951 to work for the former

New Orleans States-Item newspaper, an afternoon daily. She was not the first woman journalist in visible positions in New Orleans, for at least two others had preceded her in such work. Walter G. Cowan (c. 1911–2010), her boss at The States-Item, described her as a "natural reporter. It was obvious to me right off that she had the ability to talk to people and retain their confidence, even though she had to ask embarrassing questions. It's the kind of thing that rattles new reporters, but she always kept her composure."^[2]

After three years, The States-Item assigned Kelso in 1954 to the City Hall beat while

mental institution, a matter which drew national attention. She recalled having once interviewed Long in his long-handles underwear.^[1]

In 1960, Iris Turner wed Robert N. Kelso, a States-Item copy editor, who died of a lengthy illness in 1972. The couple had no children.[1]

Kelso covered the

Johnson-Humphrey ticket and is remembered for the fight over the Mississippi state delegation between party regulars and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

.

From 1965 to 1967, she worked for a federal

WDSU-TV, where she was employed from 1967 to 1978. She attended the 1976 Democratic National Convention in New York City, which confirmed the successful Carter-Mondale ticket. At Figaro, Kelso wrote a series of stories on her own family, including a focus on her first cousin, Turner Catledge, a former managing editor of The New York Times.^[1]

She did not join The Times-Picayune, her last employer, until 1979. She continued with Figaro, by then a separate magazine, in which she revealed the story of the feuding sons of the late

Ronald W. Reagan in 1980 launched his general election campaign. She listed Eleanor Roosevelt as her single most interesting interviewee and Edwin Edwards as the most interesting of the six governors that she covered, but she determined that her readers especially enjoyed her columns on her own family.^[1]