Athens is mourning the loss of Jeffrey Brooks Harvey, a longtime journalist, sports lover and community member who died unexpectedly on Friday evening, June 12, 2026, at his home. He was 61.
Harvey, known to many simply as Jeff, was born on August 20, 1964, in Bluefield to the late Roy Lee Joe Harvey and Patricia Sue Boothe Harvey.
He graduated from Athens High School in 1983 and later earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Concord College in Athens.
For much of his adult life, Harvey built a career in journalism.
He started writing for the Princeton Times in 1990 and was still contributing articles to the Bluefield Telegraph at the time of his death
. His work kept him connected to the region and to the stories that mattered most to local readers.
He was also a member of the Princeton Advent Christian Church and had a wide range of interests that reflected his curiosity and love of community life.
Friends and family remember him as someone who enjoyed writing, reading and sports of all kinds, with a special interest in baseball and in Civil War history.
A life built around words, faith and local ties
Harvey’s death has left a gap not only in his family, but also among the people who knew him through his work and church life.
A career in local journalism often means being present for the milestones, struggles and everyday moments that shape a community, and Harvey spent decades doing exactly that.
He had a way of staying connected to the place he came from. Athens was not just where he studied.
It was part of his identity, from high school through college and into the years that followed. That local connection, along with his steady presence in journalism, made him a familiar name to many across the region.
He was preceded in death by his brother, Kevin Harvey. He is survived by his sister, Deborah Kaye Harvey; Kevin’s fiancée Kimberly Norton and her daughter Amanda Wright and husband Matt; cousins Ann and Jim Smith, Karen and David Hall, Darlene and Marty Thorp and their daughter Olivia; maternal uncle F. H. “Sonny” Boothe; special nephew Jacob Adkins; good friend Kristen O’Sullivan; and his beloved pets Eleketra, Storm, Billy the Kid and Rocky, also known as Cat Buddha.
Those close to him have asked that his memory be honored by being gentle and kind, a fitting request for someone who spent his life telling stories, appreciating history and staying grounded in the community around him.
Harvey’s service will be held on Thursday, June 18, 2026, at 4 p.m. in the Chapel of the Memorial Funeral Directory on Athens Road in Princeton, with Pastor Sam Walsh officiating.
Friends may visit with the family from 3 p.m. until the service hour. After the service, he will be cremated, with inurnment at Woodlawn Memorial Park Cemetery at a later time.
In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Memorial Funeral Directory for Jeff or to a charity supporting Autism, Parkinson’s disease or cancer research.
For those who knew him, Jeffrey Harvey will be remembered as a writer, a church member, a friend and a man who cared deeply about the world around him.
