Walking the Talk

J’lyn Nye’s journey from award-winning journalist to community advocate spans decades of meaningful impact

There’s a story on the tip of J’lyn Nye’s tongue, and it’s always been that way. Years back, a high school teacher once told her parents, “J’lyn won’t get by on her grades, but she sure can talk; maybe she should think about getting into broadcasting.” 

The Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario girl didn’t just think about it; she rose through the broadcasting ranks from the age of 19, working in Thunder Bay and then Regina, before landing a prestigious news anchor role at Global Edmonton in 2000. Nye says she didn’t intend to stay in Edmonton, but the city so deeply embraced her that she didn’t want to let go. 

The lady with the iconic red hair and strong voice has long ago proven she doesn’t just talk the talk—she’s a tireless advocate for countless community causes, especially those related to the military, and for the last two years has served as the Director of Marketing and Digital Media for the Edmonton Police Service (EPS).  

Along with fulfilling the role of her day job, she recently hosted the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Beverly Memorial Cenotaph, emceed an event for the Alberta School Boards Association in Edmonton followed by an event for the Wounded Warriors Western Canada First Responders Mental Health Conference in Calgary, and then hosted the EPS Police & Citizen Award Ceremony—all in a 10-day span. She also sits on the Board of Directors for Veterans’ House Canada, an organization that builds permanent, supportive and affordable housing for homeless veterans. 

But none of this is out of the ordinary for Nye—at least not since 2003 when a life-altering incident took place.

While at Global TV, she was asked to cover the opening of the Juno Beach Centre, a museum in Normandy built to recognize the service of Canadians during World War II. Initially, she and cameraman, the late Steve Korby, were planning to do a series of feature reports until Nye realized they had enough footage for a short documentary. Return to Normandy quickly became a passion project, winning a 2004 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best Documentary (International Category) and directly impacting how Nye thought about her own life. 

“I walked up and down the rows of headstones,” she says. “It made me realize … I wanted to live my life, my way. I felt I owed it to those names I was reading on those headstones to live my best life possible … because frankly their sacrifice paved the way for that.” 

The experience spurred her to buy a motorcycle, get her first tattoo, and eventually switch from her late-night job at Global TV to the early morning shift at JOE FM radio. The move gave her a better work-life balance, which led to meeting her future husband, Jim Nahrebeski, in 2010.

Meanwhile, she was getting more and more involved in the military community and, in 2012, received a letter from the Military Family Resource Centre asking if she’d consider the role of patron of the Edmonton Garrison Military Family Resource Centre. By this point, she was volunteering every year as the host of the province’s Remembrance Day service at the Butterdome, spending countless hours researching, writing and planning. It was the only event that made her nervous every year as she wanted her words to resonate with the audience. That service ended in 2019, but since 2022, after an interruption due to COVID-19 restrictions, Nye has been hosting the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Beverly Memorial Cenotaph.

In those years, Nye also found the time to write some of the personal stories of fallen soldiers—who they really were as humans—for Project Heroes. 

Not one to sit still, Nye accepted an invite to an event by the Lord Strathcona’s Horse, an armoured regiment of the Canadian army. She fired a Leopard tank, stayed in a tent, and met the late Bart West, who was the Honourary Colonel for 408 Tactical Helicopter Squadron in Edmonton at the time. He asked if she had ever considered being an Honourary Colonel; she hadn’t but as fate would have it, roughly a year later, she was asked to apply for that same role. 

Nye was extremely honoured, but also nervous; after she got the position in 2015, she spoke with West again. “I said: ‘Bart, what do I do?’ And he says: ‘Just be there with a smile and an open ear and listen to people.’ I’m like: ‘Well, I can do that,’” says Nye. “So to me, that has been the best. Everything else has been the gravy.” 

The gravy, she says, includes incredible experiences like mountain flying with the helicopter crew, and watching the type of skill involved with flying in difficult terrain, as the squadron has done in Afghanistan, Mali, Iraq and Haiti.

During this time, Nye was missing the news so she became a talk show host for 630 CHED, where she stayed for 10 years. In 2023, though, she shifted her career in a whole different direction, leading a team which provides the written, video and social media storytelling for the Edmonton Police Service. Nye’s broadcasting run exceeded three decades. “It was wonderful,” she says, and she loved the sense of community she felt while in it. But it was time for a change.

The role with EPS is challenging but rewarding. While it’s different from broadcasting, Nye is still telling stories. “My journey has led to a lot of things,” she reflects. “I’ve been able to meet so many incredible people. It’s been 36 years of telling stories, [just] in different ways.”