Janice Arnsdorff is the new editor of the Cedar Creek Pilot in Gun Barrel City. She replaced Jayson Larson who moved to sister paper the Athens Daily Review. Arnsdorff previously worked at the Pilot and Ingleside Index.

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April Barbe is the new city beat reporter for the Jacksonville Daily Progress. Barbe came to Jacksonville from the Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, where she worked the police/court beat since 2001.

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Brenda Bernet, Plano Star Courier education reporter, won a Stephen Philbin Award from the Dallas Bar Association for best suburban spot news coverage of a legal issue. Bernet earned the honor for her coverage of the candy cane case, in which families have sued the Plano school district over free-speech rights after the district would not allow candy canes with a religious message.

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Jonathan Blundell has joined the team at the Waxahachie Daily Light as a staff writer. Blundell served the last several years as the editor of The Belton Journal.

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Jeannette Burger is a new correspondent covering Round Top for the Fayette County Record. She also is a Realtor.

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Tracy Dang, reporter for the Madisonville Meteor, is engaged to Binh Thai, a Houston-based computer consultant. The couple is planning a spring wedding.

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C.J. Flesher joined the staff of the County Star-News in Shamrock as reporter/photographer. He hails from Hollis, Okla., and attends Southwestern Oklahoma State University and Oklahoma State University, majoring in political science.

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Annette Fuller, former city editor of the Denton Record-Chronicle, has been named managing editor. Fuller became city editor in the summer of 2002. From 1998 to 2002, she was a reporter for The Dallas Morning News, working in Denton County.

Fuller took over the newsroom from Barry Boesch, who died Sept. 29, 2005, from complications of a brain tumor.

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Bryan Gray has been named manager of the Granite Printing operations in Round Mountain. He also will handle web printing sales. Gray came from Bastrop, La., where he was production manager.

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Michael Krog joined the Borger News-Herald as sports editor. He moved to Borger from Tennessee.

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Jim Mahoney of The Dallas Morning News was awarded second place in the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association Foundation’s Photo of the Year contest for his photo of a Pearl Harbor survivor overcome with emotion while embracing an Iraq War veteran.

Smiley Pool, also of the Morning News, won third place in the SNPA Foundation contest for a photo of the body of Pope John Paul II being carried through a crowd of mourners.

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Kent Miller, Terrell Tribune sports editor, received a 2005 Texas Media Award from the American Cancer Society. Miller, who has been with the Tribune since 2002, received the award for his first-person feature that detailed his mother, Audrey Miller’s successful battle with pancreatic cancer.

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Robert W. Mong Jr., veteran editor of The Dallas Morning News, has been selected to receive the J.B. Buck Marryat Award presented by the Press Club of Dallas. The award is given annually to someone who has carved out a lengthy and meritorious career in journalism. Mong came to The News in 1979.

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A.J. Narasimhan has landed at the Corsicana Daily Sun as a news reporter. He has worked in Ennis, Waxahachie and Marble Falls.

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Matt Oliver, a Hearst executive for the past 10 years, has been named executive vice president and general manager of the Houston Chronicle. Oliver most recently headed up a productivity initiative for Hearst newspapers and previously spent 10 years at the San Antonio Express-News.

He replaces Robert “Bob” Carlquist, who is leaving the newspaper.

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Jeremy Pafford, the presentation editor at The Bryan-College Station Eagle, has been named managing editor of the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung. He is a 10-year newspaper veteran.

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Terri Parker has joined the Diboll Free Press as a new ad sales representative. She has worked for Cox Newspapers in the classified advertising department at the Austin American-Statesman and the retail advertising departments at the Lufkin Daily News and Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel.

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Derek Price has been named editor of Herald Banner Publications, which publishes the Greenville Herald-Banner. He replaces Brad Kellar, who returned to being a reporter. Most recently he was editor for Star Community Newspapers in Dallas-Fort Worth.

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Gene Pruitt Sr. is the new sports editor of the Buffalo Express. He also is the local sports announcer/color commentator for the Buffalo Bisons, a job he has held for 20 years. He owns Insurance Junction in Buffalo.

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Charles Richards, a reporter for The Paris News, married Barbara Maurischat Oct. 8, 2005, at the Primitive Baptist Church in Paris where he is a deacon. Prior to moving to Paris in February 2004, he was a newsman for The Associated Press for 26 years. The bride is a high school counselor.

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Michael Smith and Scott Stanford are switching states.

Smith has been named editor of the Steamboat Pilot & Today in Colorado. He has been associate editor of The Galveston County Daily News. He succeeds Stanford, who is leaving Colorado to come to Texas to become assistant news editor of the Victoria Advocate.

Laura Elder, Smith’s wife, has been named editor of the Craig (Colo.) Daily Press. Elder also worked for the Daily News.

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Tia Rae Stone has moved from being a senior editor and creative director to managing editor at The Cameron Herald.

The paper has been without a managing editor since Mike Peck died in August. Peck worked for the Herald for over 30 years, and spent much of the last 15 years as the paper’s managing editor.

Stone has been a working journalist for nearly 15 years. She was assistant editor at the Belton Journal before moving to Marble Falls to work as The Highlander’s community news editor. She held the same position with the Taylor Daily Press before moving to Cameron in 2001.

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Dolph Tillotson, publisher of The Galveston County Daily News, has been elected chairman of the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association board of directors. Tillotson had been president of the SNPA.

Wesley R. Turner, president and publisher of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and W. Lawrence Walker, publisher and CEO of the San Antonio Express-News, were elected to three-year terms on the SNPA board.

The elections came during the Atlanta-based group’s annual convention in Palm Beach, Fla.

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Wendell Tooley was honored as a 2005 McMurry University Distinguished Alumni in October. Tooley is a former longtime publisher and past president of Panhandle Press Association. He has served as a McMurry trustee since 1965 and as a McMurry representative to the United Methodist churches in the Plainview district.

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Ann Turnbach, Houston Chronicle vice president of human resources, was recently awarded the Best Human Resources Executive by HR.com, the largest research and Web destination for human resources executives. Turnbach started her career at the Chronicle in 1983 as training manager. She has been in her present position since 1995.

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Albert Villegas joined The Community News in Aledo as a reporter and photographer. Villegas has an associate’s degree in photography from the Art Institute of Houston.

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Tommy Wells has been named the new editor of the Colorado City Record, filling the vacancy created when former editor Henry Martinez stepped down to pursue other opportunities. Wells comes to Colorado City from Nome, Alaska, where he served as the editor of the Kaniqsiruqut News.

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Keith Williams joined the Alpine Avalanche to replace office manager Ann-Mary Rodriguez. Williams will assume the duties of bookkeeping, classified advertising, circulation and customer service.