Newsmakers

Promotions, new hires and other employment news reported by Texas newspapers and published in the March 2025 edition of the Texas Press Messenger.

Taylor Press welcomes new editor, reporter

TAYLOR – Granite Media Partners welcomed two new staff members at the Taylor Press.

Jason Chlapek is the new area managing editor for the Taylor Press and the Elgin Courier. Emily Treadway is a general assignment reporter specializing in education.

Chlapek replaces April Kelley, who died in December. He is a 20-year veteran of the newspaper industry. 

His stops include stints with daily newspapers in New Braunfels, Plano, Kerrville, Seguin, Killeen and Temple. He has also worked with semiweeklies and weeklies, including Brenham, Madisonville, Gonzales, Center, Trinity County, Whitesboro and Freestone County. The papers in Madisonville, Gonzales and Center were under the operation of Granite Publications, the forerunner of Granite Media Partners. Granite still operates the Madisonville Meteor.

Chlapek said he is happy to be in his new role. “I look forward to giving the readers of those papers balanced, quality content,” he said.

Treadway is the former editor of the Georgetown View and has a background primarily in magazine

writing, having penned stories for the Georgetown View and its sister magazine the Hill Country View, and most recently, Edible Austin and Edible San Antonio.

“I have freelanced for area newspapers in the past,” Treadway said. “But working for a newspaper like the Taylor Press is a new experience for me. I’m very excited.”

She already has a relationship with the Taylor community. She previously worked as co-writer and researcher with “The Daytripper’s” Chet Garner on a documentary about Dan Moody, the Taylor native attorney who took on the Ku Klux Klan in court and became the governor of Texas in 1927.

She takes over from Kelly Tran, who left the Press for a job with an Austin-based magazine.

“We’re very pleased to have two journalists join the staff of the caliber of Jason and Emily,” said Thomas Edwards, executive editor of Granite Media Partners Inc., which owns the Press and Courier.

“We’re expecting great things from both.”

Thomas joins Beaumont Enterprise as community reporter

BEAUMONT – Houston native Bianca Thomas has joined the staff of the Beaumont Enterprise as a community reporter.

Thomas is a 2024 graduate of Texas State University in San Marcos, where she worked at the Texas State radio station and the student newspaper. 

Thomas competed in editorial and feature writing competitions in middle and elementary school before joining the newspaper and yearbook staffs in high school.  However, journalism wasn’t her first choice for a college major. She came to that decision after majoring in chemistry and interior design.

Her first job out of college was as a technical writer for oil and gas companies.

 In her new position, she plans to continue the newspaper’s mission of telling previously untold stories, assuring local residents they are valued and have a voice.

Thomas said she’s particularly excited to get involved in her new city.

Gilbert Torres retires from San Marcos Record

SAN MARCOS – Gilbert Torres retired from the San Marcos Record on Valentines Day after 47 years of service in production and distribution.

A 1977 graduate of San Marcos High School, Torres started work at the Record on Sept. 1, 1978. During his tenure, he has seen nearly every aspect of newspaper production change from the days of developing film in darkrooms o the digital age. While the technology evolved, his dedication remained constant.

He started in the circulation department, inserting sections of the newspaper together by hand. When a position opened in the press room’s darkroom, he jumped at the opportunity.

“It just seemed like something I could apply myself to — a trade I could learn,” he said.

In those days, newspapers were produced using large cameras, negatives and metal plates. Torres would take the pages that had been cut and pasted by hand and photograph them with a 20-foot-long camera before developing the negatives in trays. From there, he would burn the images of each page on to metal plates that would go onto the printing press.

His work in pre-press was meticulous, and he took pride in his work. “I liked working for the newspaper,” Torres said. “It is out in the public. People get to see it, and they would actually see my work.”

In addition to his darkroom duties, Torres was also a pressman, and he was there when the Daily Record stopped printing in-house. He was also there when the press was brought back a few years later. Torres saw computers replace the darkroom and when design went from being done by hand to being done digitally.

When the press shut down originally in 2010, He transitioned into circulation; however, much had changed with the digital evolution, so the job was much different than when he started decades earlier.

He adapted, handling customer service, training newspaper carriers and even delivering papers himself when needed — often at odd hours of the night.

Beyond the pressroom, Torres found another lifelong passion — music. He started playing bass in the 1980s, learning from local musicians and playing in bands around San Marcos and Austin.

“I always tried to find musicians who were better than me, so I could learn,” he said. “And now I try to pass that on, teaching what I know to others.”

Torres’ colleagues praised his dedication to customer service and his willingness to work with others.

“He cared about this newspaper,” circulation manager Karen George said. “If someone didn’t get their

paper, he’d drive to their house and hand-deliver it, apologizing in person. That’s just who he is.”

Torres was honored with a community retirement party hosted by the newspaper.