Brian Passey

Brian Passey was born in Cedar City, Utah, and moved to Rexburg when he was five years old. He’d live there until he graduated from Ricks College as part of the last graduating class of the institution in the spring of 2001. There, Passey was the managing editor of Scroll when President Gordon B. Hinckley announced that Ricks would become a four-year college, BYU-Idaho.

A four-year degree in journalism, Passey’s major, was not offered at BYU-Idaho then, but that didn’t stunt his progress. He headed to Moscow, Idaho, to attend The University of Idaho, where he received a degree in communication with an emphasis in journalism. 

Passey began his college career as a photo major, but began to take journalism classes because he thought, “If I am going to be a photojournalist, what happens if I have to write a story if there isn’t a journalist there?”

As he took these classes he realized he wanted to focus on writing.

He liked the process of telling people’s stories, which writing allowed him to do. A big project for his basic journalism class at Ricks gave him this opportunity.

He found that there were 17 students who weren’t LDS but were attending Ricks College. He chose to write a story on these students to help capture why they would go there. He tells of a Muslim girl from Jordan. When her roommates were going to church, she was on her third prayer of faith for that day.

Passey said that as he wrote this and many other stories, he thought, “Maybe I’m going to make a change and switch to journalism.”

Throughout his years he gained experience in photojournalism and journalism through freelance work with the Rexburg Standard Journal, the Post Register in Idaho Falls, the Scroll, and through engagement photo-shoots. He was actively involved in Scroll at Ricks and the Society of Professional Journalists at the University of Idaho.  He held positions as editor and secretary.

After graduation from the University of Idaho, Passey was accepted (the first University of Idaho student to ever have been accepted) to Poynter Institute, which he describes as grad school in six weeks.  At Poynter Institute, Passey studied how to cover specifically race, religion and ethics within journalism as well as the purpose and craft of journalism.

Passey began to apply to different newspapers while at Poynter Institute and looked on journalismjob.com for available jobs. He took a job at The Spectrum in St. George, Utah, where he started as a political reporter. He later took a position with the same newspaper as their feature-story writer, where he remains today.

For an article he interviewed staffers from Big Brothers Big Sisters which is an organization that pairs children with adult role models with whom the children can build a relationship of trust and friendship.  As Passey asked them questions they began to ask him questions as well.

“If I am going to be reporting on the community, maybe I should be a part of it,” Passey said,  

He decided to volunteer with the organization and was matched as a big brother with a 7-year-old boy. Passey has been a mentor and friend to this boy since that day, nine years ago.

Two and a half years ago Passey was asked to be a member of the Big Brothers Big Sisters-Southern Utah Satellite Committee and recently became the chair. Last year he was the Big Brother of the Year for the state of Utah.

Outside of work, he spends much of his time helping Big Brothers Big Sisters. Passey said:

       This organization is a big part of my life now…[It] has given me the chance to help raise a child            and experience some of the things a real father experiences…My involvement with Big            Brothers Big sisters helps me show that I don’t just write about the community, I am apart of it.