Adrian Paul Bryant

Greetings! My name is Adrian Paul Bryant. I’m a native, proud Kentuckian currently living in the beautiful city of Lexington. I’m passionate about my city, my state, my neighbors, and treating all of those with the dignity they deserve through education and community service.

I am currently the Lexington Government Reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader, the paper of record in Lexington and Central Kentucky. My work focuses on keeping readers up to date on weekly city hall happenings, deep-dives on local policy decisions that affect locals’ daily lives, and community-oriented stories that spotlight organizations, leaders, and neighborhoods that make up Lexington’s cultural fabric.

I previously was a Civic Information Specialist for local non-profit CivicLex. My role was essentially that of a City Hall Reporter but with a more educational focus than traditional journalist. I attended nearly all Lexington city government meetings and wrote about them in our CivicLex Weekly Newsletter and on their news-specific website. I started with CivicLex in 2022 as their Newsroom and Communication Strategist, focusing on both news reporting and social media communications.

I am deeply involved in Lexington’s amazing community fabric. I have serve on Broke Spoke Community Bike Shop’s Board of Directors since October of 2022. I also am the Co-Chair of my local neighborhood association, which just recently has been revived after going dormant in 2012. Prior to my work as Co-Chair, I was a member of the Steering Committee to help get the association revived and back off the ground. I’ve also served as a writing tutor with The Carnegie Center for Literacy and Learning, and on various discrete focus groups and committees for projects in Lexington.

My career prior to life in Lexington was spent in more traditional educational settings. I worked for four years at the Noel Studio for Academic Creativity, Eastern Kentucky University’s (EKU) on-campus writing center. I was a writing tutor for freshmen in Developmental First-Year Writing courses, and eventually became the Coordinator for fellow writing tutors. After leaving the Noel Studio, I spent a year at Madison Southern High School serving as a Paraeducator, and later the school’s Testing Coordinator. I also served in 2023 as a First-Generation Student Advisor at the University of Kentucky, assisting First-Gen students as they created their path toward academic success at the Commonwealth’s flagship university. You can read more about my education work here.

I graduated from Eastern Kentucky University in January 2022, where I earned a Bachelors of Arts in English and a Minor in Appalachian Studies. As a student, I won multiple awards for my campus involvement and my coursework: in Fall 2017 I was given the “Outstanding First Year Student Award”; in Spring 2019 I won the “English Department Award for Grammar and Linguistuics” for my term paper in my, appropriately enough, Grammar and Linguistics course (ENG 410); and in Spring 2020 I won the “English Department Award for Creative Writing” for my short story “Knowing in Part,” written in Advanced Creative Writing (ENG 502). I also engaged in a number of academic projects, including flipping a freshman Anthropology course, proofreading an academic book, and speaking as a Featured Presenter at the 2020 Pedagogicon academic conference.

Me and my late, dearly missed friend, Larry Albert, playing at Rock House Brewing’s Old Time Music Jam. Photo by Jo Mackby.

In non-professional contexts, you can find me embedded in Lexington’s folk, bluegrass, and old time music scene or reading at a local coffee shop. You can typically see my getting around town on my bike or on a Lextran bus, and am always teaching my neighbors on how they can do the same. I am also a huge baseball fan, so you can find me cheering on our local teams at Kentucky Proud Park or Legends Field! I’m proud to have a young dog named Daisy who barks incessantly but cuddles relentlessly, and two young but large cats named Greg and Rodrick. I’m always happy to talk about music, books, transportation, baseball, and/or pets with anyone who wishes to.

Want to get in touch? Reach out at adrian.bryant32@gmail.com! You can also follow me on Bluesky, Instagram, LinkedIn, or head here for some updates on things I’m up to and working on!