May 2008

Newsmakers

-- Robert Aguilar, president and publisher of the San Angelo Standard-Times, will retire at the end of this year, ending a career that has spanned four decades in the newspaper business. Aguilar will remain as publisher emeritus. He arrived in San Angelo in 2004, after spending four years as the advertising director at the Scripps Record Searchlight in Redding, Calif. Prior to Scripps, he was the display advertising manager for the San Antonio Express-News from 1999 to 2000.


-- Don Alexander officially retired after 10 years as publisher of the Bowie County Citizens Tribune and DeKalb News. Woody Morgan was named as his successor.


-- Twila Aufill retired after nearly 46 years at the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, most recently as general manager. She started her career in the classified department and held just about every job in accounting before being promoted to her current post in October 2001.

-- Tracy Dahlby has been named director of the School of Journalism at the University of Texas at Austin. Dahlby, the Frank A. Bennack Jr. chair in journalism, will serve a two-year term. Dahlby spent three decades as an international affairs journalist before joining UT in 2006. He succeeds Lorraine Branham, who was named dean of Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.


-- The Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post has added two members to its newsroom staff.

Matt Ward, who came to work at the newspaper at the end of last August, and Jeff Benzing, who started at the beginning of March, are handling general news assignments, including sports, as well as taking on photography duties.


-- Patrick Gonzales is the new assistant sports editor with the Detroit News in Michigan. For the past four years he had been sports editor with the Lubbock Avalanche Journal.

-- Mike Laosa is retiring in October as publisher of the Austin American-Statesman, a post he has held for more than 12 years. Laosa became publisher in 1996 after serving as group vice president for Cox Newspapers. He also worked for the Port Arthur News.

Michael Vivio, publisher of the Waco Tribune-Herald, has been named to succeed Laosa as publisher in Austin. Vivio will become associate publisher in June and take over as publisher in the fall. Vivio has been publisher in Waco since 2005. He was general manager and advertising director for the paper prior to that.

Belinda Gaudet has been named publisher in Waco, succeeding Vivio. Gaudet is executive vice president and general manager of the American-Statesman. She joined the paper in 2003. She worked as a reporter in Port Arthur and served as publisher in Orange and Lufkin.


-- Sharon Jean Russell, owner and publisher of the Franklin News Weekly, was injured in a rollover accident on March 13. A story in the Weekly said Russell was driving with her infant great-nephew Logan Ristoff in the car when a tire blew out and the car went into an uncontrolled skid before flipping over. Russell and the infant only suffered minor bruises and scratches in the wreck. She was wearing a seatbelt and the infant was in a carseat.


-- The San Antonio Express-News been promoted two women to advertising vice president positions.

Charlotte Aaron becomes vice president of classified advertising, and Liz English is vice president of display advertising.

Aaron was recruited by the Express-News in January 1995 and moved through the ranks to become classified advertising director in 2003.

English joined the newspaper less than three years ago as precision marketing manager.


-- Julie Ann Thompson has joined the Pampa News as a staff writer.