Diane Evans to head new media endeavor

Diane Evans is leaving the Beacon Journal to be president of SunLit Syndicate and its DelMio Web site. She will oversee business and creative development for the new online media company, which will produce highly specialized multi-media content related to books and reading. Diane is majority owner of the new company, which has been a joint effort on the part of several Beacon Journal colleagues and local business people. The DelMio site will be distributed through public libraries and other organizations that want to add value to members and/or customers.

Diane began her tenure at the Akron Beacon Journal in 1974. As editor of Ellet High's school's newspaper, Diane had met and interviewed the late Beacon Journal education editor Helen Carringer. It was Helen who helped Diane get a start at the Beacon Journal, through a program involving Akron public schools. As a high school senior, Diane had been given an opportunity to spend three weeks at the Beacon Journal. That was in February 1974. She managed to hang around the rest of the school year, and get hired that June for a Saturday copy-running job. Her first byline in the Beacon Journal appeared on Aug. 24, 1974 -- on her 18th birthday. Mr. John S. Knight initialed a copy of that first story. Diane became a full-time staff writer in 1978. Her experience includes seven years as the paper's education writer, eight years as an editorial writer and nine years as a local business columnist. In more recent years, Diane wrote a "livingwell" column that was distributed weekly to nearly 500 newspapers by Knight Ridder Tribune syndicate.

Since April, Diane has been on a leave of absence, devoting full attention to the development of SunLit Syndicate.

Diane is a graduate of The University of Akron, with a bachelor's degree in political science. She is also a frequent speaker throughout Northeast Ohio and has made numerous appearances on radio and television talk shows in the Cleveland and
Akron area.