Bay Bulletin is saddened to report the loss of a beloved member of the Chesapeake Bay Magazine family.
Seven-year CBM advertising sales team member, and a passionate supporter of the Annapolis local music scene, Jeni Parris Brady succumbed to cancer on Sunday. She was 58.
Jeni founded Naptown Music, promoting Annapolis musicians and running an app listing local shows and artists. Band members say she’d sometimes make it to four shows in one night.
Aaron Yealdhall, a friend whose folk band Skribe is well-known on the Annapolis music scene, said this of Jeni:
“She connected so many people with her passion of preserving moments and sharing them with the world. Jeni’s secret ingredient was a genuine love for the music, people, and hometown.”
Jeni did it all on top of her “day job”.” She was an integral part of Chesapeake Bay Magazine, and publisher John Stefancik shares the following remembrance of her contributions:
Jeni arrived at Chesapeake Bay Magazine in the fall of 2012 with a couple of decades of media advertising sales in her wake. She was in-between gigs, and her oldest son was recovering from a serious car accident. She needed a place to land that offered flexibility, stability, and another chance to thrive. Thrive she did.
She took over for our longest-serving advertising representative who was leaving after more than three decades with the magazine. Jeni’s personable demeanor and thorough sense of responsibility made the transition easy as she immediately endeared herself to her clients and took up the mantle of enhancing their marketing and branding.
Great advertising salespeople are those who understand the essential goals and attributes of each client, especially the small businesses. Then they help shape advertising messages with effective photography, headlines and taglines to promote the clients’ offerings. Jeni did this so well. It seemed that each client was her only concern. In fact, she served more than 100.
Jeni was reliably professional. Her clients and the magazine owners and staff knew they could trust and depend on her.
She was always working. When not representing the magazine, our various publications, and our advertisers, she was the nexus of promotional information for the robust Annapolis music scene thorough her Naptown Music feeds. She was ubiquitous at local concerts, festivals, bars and restaurants where she live-streamed the shows and spread the fun. She was the first to leverage social media to support the artists and Chesapeake Bay Magazine advertisers. It seemed that she didn’t sleep very much. We worried about that.
Jeni was instrumental in connecting Chesapeake Bay Magazine with the Fish for A Cure Tournament—raising support and awareness for cancer care at Anne
Arundel Medical Center. We soon became a media sponsor and participants in the event. Then, she became quiet; not so visible, but still working.
Weeks passed, and I received a text from her to say that she felt she should transition off of a major account in order to be sure they were served better. That’s when we knew. She worked from home right until the end.
Then she left us after a valiant struggle with a rare form of cancer.
-John Stefancik, CBM Publisher
