Karen Lefton, Linda Lyell leaving BJ

Karen Lefton is leaving her position as general counsel of the Akron Beacon Journal to join the law firm of Brouse McDowell, where she will be a principal in the labor and employment group. Her last day will be June 20.

Lefton, who has been at the Beacon Journal for 28 years, joined the newspaper as a reporter in January, 1980. She also worked as a copy editor, news editor, region editor and city editor.

During the five years she was city editor, the Beacon Journal was named best newspaper of its size in Ohio four times. After 17 years in the newsroom, she moved to Human Resources and became the labor relations manager, working on employee and union matters. She grew into assisting with all areas of the law and most enjoyed helping the newsroom get access to public records and meetings. As associate general counsel, she successfully argued the newspaper's case for access to juror questionnaires at the Ohio Supreme Court. Citing the Beacon Journal v. Bond case, many jurisdictions now include a caveat on their juror questionnaires that the information potential jurors provide is public.

Linda Lyell, the Beacon Journal's vice president of Online Operations, also is leaving.
She has been with Ohio.com since 1999. Before that, she worked for the Beacon Journal as the creative director in Marketing Communications. She has been a marketing director for Stan Hywet Hall and Gardens, Main Street Muffins, has operated her own business and has worked as a Beacon Journal promotional design artist.

Lyell is looking forward to spending some time with her family and getting back into her artwork. She will work for about two more months.

After the sale of the paper, Linda led the Ohio. com team through the transition to a new platform. Since then traffic to Ohio.com has shown rapid growth. Year over year from 2006 2007 Ohio. com had a yearly total of 83 million page views, reflecting 18% growth. From January 2007 to January 2008 unique visitors grew to more than 1 million monthly, a 68% growth.

[Source: June 9 memo to staff by publisher Andrea C. Matthewson]