Desrosiers named sports editor

MEMORANDUM
TO: Beacon Journal newsroom
FR: Mizell Stewart III
RE: New sports editor
DA: March 9, 2006

Rich Desrosiers, who has held a series of positions of increasing responsibility in the Beacon Journal newsroom since joining the newspaper in 1994, will be our next Sports Editor. He will begin the transition immediately and move to sports full-time on Monday, March 27.

I am also thrilled to announce that Larry Pantages will remain in the Sports Department as Deputy Sports Editor, supervising our outstanding coverage of professional sports. Patrick McManamon, Sheldon Ocker, Terry Pluto, Tom Reed, Marla Ridenour and Brian Windhorst will report to Pantages. Gary Estwick, Tom Gaffney, David Lee Morgan and Stephanie Storm will report to
Desrosiers.

At the same time, we are working on combining the firepower of the news and sports copy desks under the leadership of Copy Desk Chief Kathy Fraze. It will be a "universally managed" copy desk, where individual copy editors specialize in news and sports. I believe the result will improve the
quality of life for all of our copy editors, ensure consistent editing across all sections of the newspaper and free up resources to meet new challenges, notably increasing our news and sports presence on Ohio.com.

Kathy is currently leading a "working group" of news and sports copy editors to work out the details of that transition. More information will follow as those details are worked out over the next several weeks. Rich and Larry will oversee sports copy editing and design until the transition is complete.

Rich, a resident of Stark County since the mid-1980s, joined the BJ in July 1994 as assistant national editor. He moved to the News Desk as a deputy news editor in April 1995. He was promoted to news editor in October 1996 and executive news editor in January 1998. Two years later, he left the News Desk to lead the Stark County Bureau.

In that role, Rich also served as editor for political and state news and education news. In late 2003, Rich returned to the main newsroom to lead those efforts as well as serve as the Beacon Journal's "liaison" to Ohio.com. He has teamed with reporters to lead several major reporting efforts, including the 2002 series "Ohio, Look at the State We're In," the 2003 series "Home Schooling: Whose Business Is It?" and 2004 projects on racial balance in the Akron schools and the anniversary of the landmark Brown v Board of Education ruling.

Rich's wife, Anne, is a substitute teacher and high school volleyball coach. Their three children, Andrew, Maggie and John, attend the North Canton schools. In his copious free time, Rich is a coach with the Canton Akron Penguins youth hockey association.

Mizell Stewart III
Managing Editor