Kellee leans forward in an office chair, looking beyond the shoulder of her editor, as the video for In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley plays over three screens. She squints, trying to detect the edit that was made to transition the program from Dr. Stanley’s prayer into a feature story.
Kellee has watched countless hours of Dr. Stanley’s messages, including multiple viewings of each program before it was sent to stations. And over the years she has felt a very real connection with our partners watching at home. “Sometimes you get down in the weeds of doing your job—going through scripts, making sure edits are clean, cutting to time,” she says. “And then the next thing you know, you get this great feedback from partners and you’re like, Oh yeah? Me, too! I’m so glad that made a difference to you.”
Married for 17 years—and proposed to after her first job interview at In Touch—Kellee and her husband, Jonathan, have two daughters. One, a freshman lacrosse player who loves chorus, and the other, a second-grader with a passion for gymnastics. “We have a big gap,” she says, noting the difference in their ages, “but their gap is perfect for them. It works for us, too.” The gap provides space for the older daughter to have a busier social life than the younger. “People want to say, ‘Just get the work/life balance,’ but it’s not that. You just do what you can, where you are.”
“I can’t tell you how many sermons I’ve worked on and church services I’ve been in where I’m working—and I’m in working-brain mode—but I’m being blessed, you know?”
Kellee is balancing something else at the moment as she transitions to a new role. She’s working to define her newly created position as Director of Content Planning and Strategy for In Touch video. She’ll continue to manage the program—a long-time colleague will move up to become showrunner—and Kellee will oversee a team of producers as we expand our programming and develop new projects.
She’s excited, yet a bit sad that she won’t be able to watch the program as much as she’s used to. “I can’t tell you how many sermons I’ve worked on and church services I’ve been in where I’m working—and I’m in working-brain mode—but I’m being blessed, you know? Because Dr. Stanley’s teaching is so good and so impactful. So full of God’s grace and truth. It’s amazing.”
