Virgil Shipley, a longtime photographer and reporter for the Mount Vernon News, has died.

According to Country Court Skilled Nursing Home in Mount Vernon, Shipley, 95, passed away Tuesday, Jan. 17, after an undisclosed illness.

Shipley had worked for the News since 1956, according to former colleague Corby Wise, the paper's former advertising director.

"He was really a fixture, an icon in the community for years," Wise said. "If you saw him coming around, you knew there'd be a chance you'd be in the paper."

Wise said Shipley liked covering anything to do with automobiles and airplanes, the Junior Miss pageant, and fire and police stories.

"He always kept a [police] scanner with him," he added. "The town was founded in 1805, and he started in 1956, so he was around for a quarter of the town's history, taking pictures. He really was the face of the Mount Vernon News, in my opinion."

We will have further coverage of this breaking story in Saturday's print edition.