The Sky-Hi News has hired Eli Pace as its editor, bringing on board a 37-year-old veteran journalist who has filled almost every position a newspaper’s editorial department has to offer.
Pace comes to Grand County after most recently working as features editor and then reporter for the Summit Daily News in Frisco. As a reporter, he covered town governments, business, real estate, nonprofits, marijuana, breaking news and general assignment stories.
That stint lasted more than two-and-a-half years and followed Pace holding the role of managing editor for the Kentucky New Era Media Group, a small assortment of family-owned community publications based out of Hopkinsville, Kentucky, which he did for nearly five years.
In Kentucky, Pace spearheaded numerous niche and special publications while overseeing the production of a weekly newspaper and leading the newsroom for the media group’s flagship newspaper — the Kentucky New Era — which delivered in print five days a week and online 24/7.
During his tenure at the New Era, the newspaper expanded its local coverage, grew its digital audience and began naming an athlete of the year among local high schools for every sanctioned sport. At the same time, Pace led the newspaper’s coverage through major events like floods, tornadoes and more than one murder case that made headlines in the New York Times.
However, Pace has also done a lot with a host of community events, happenings like donkey basketball fundraisers, the Hopkinsville Rotary Club’s annual weeklong auction or youth pageants at the Western Kentucky State Fair.
“Ultimately, the paper was going through budget cuts, and I really wanted to come home,” Pace said of his reasons for resigning as editor of the Kentucky New Era.
While the bulk of Pace’s professional experience came to him in the South, he grew up on Colorado’s eastern plains, having graduated high school in Fort Morgan and college at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley.
And it was in Greeley that Pace began his professional career, first landing a job as an agate clerk with the Greeley Tribune’s sports department before starting to work his way up the ladder.
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in journalism, Pace moved to Tennessee, where he has a large concentration of family and worked various positions at a handful of papers, including copy editor and night editor, before jumping the state line to Kentucky.
In Kentucky, Pace led a small staff of about 10 journalists who were perennially recognized as among the best in the state press association’s division of mid-sized daily publications. Additionally, he has won individual awards for writing, photography, page design and use of social media.
Pace assumed the editor’s duties at Sky-Hi News on Wednesday, and he aims to keep the newspaper as focused on Grand County as it can be, while also looking to grow local coverage and be of service to the community.
“If there’s one thing I would like to emphasize, it’s how happy I am to be here,” Pace said. “I grew up staring at these mountains. Now, I get to live and work in the heart of them.”
Pace takes the editor’s job at Sky-Hi News after Bryce Martin left the position to become the digital engagement editor for the Steamboat Pilot & Today.
Pace’s hobbies include skiing, camping, hiking, whitewater adventures, photography, going to the movies, spending time with friends and family, and shooting the breeze with anyone who has a good story to tell.
He also likes meeting new people and welcomes anyone to stop by the Sky-Hi office in Granby. Reach him at epace@skyhinews.com.