Newsmakers for February 2017

SCOTT ALLEN
JOSHUA McKINNEY
MATTHEW FULLER
FREDERICKSBURG – Three new employees have joined the staff at the Fredericksburg Standard-Radio Post, publisher Ken Cooke announced. 
Scott Allen, a member of the staff since September of 2015, recently marked one year in the newsroom. Allen, a 2010 graduate of Fredericksburg High School, received a journalism degree, with a minor in analysis of visual media, from Texas State University in San Marcos in 2014. Previously, he has worked for the University Star at Texas State, the Herald Zeitung in New Braunfels, the Cody Enterprise in Cody, Wyoming and the Leadville Democrat in Leadville, Colorado. He covers city government, along with and outdoors stories. 
Joshua McKinney has returned to the Fredericksburg Standard after working at the Brownsville Herald for the past year. He previously worked in Fredericksburg from March-November 2015. McKinney takes on the role of sports editor and will coordinate sports coverage as well as bring more sports features and columns. 
Matthew Fuller is the newest addition to the Fredericksburg Standard staff, joining the production team in November. Fuller, originally from Paris, Texas, has experience in advertising and as an in-house designer. 

JO ANNE EMBLETON
JACKSONVILLE – After a little more than four years at the Jacksonville Progress, reporter Jo Anne Embleton is retiring. 
Embleton, whose journalism career spans nearly three decades, said she is ready to spend more time with her family. She hopes to do some freelance writing in retirement.
As the only full-time reporter for the Progress, Embleton covered many different areas, but her primary beats were education and Cherokee County. She also oversaw the production of the “Living” section.
Embleton graduated from Texas A&I University (now Texas A&M University-Kingsville) in 1990 with a degree in communications with emphasis on journalism. She has also worked for the Kingsville Record, the Henderson Daily News and the Tyler Morning Telegraph. She spent 16 years of her career as a writer for Catholic East Texas, the newspaper for the Diocese of Tyler, which covers 33 counties of northeast Texas.

JIMMY GALVAN
DENNIS SILVA II
KATY – Katy Times Publisher Terry Schaub this week announced the promotions of Jimmy Galvan to managing editor and Dennis Silva II to sports editor.
“Jimmy has done a great job covering sports the past several years, and he will take our news coverage to a new level and in a different direction,” Schaub said. “I have known Dennis for some time. He is a true sports junkie and a Katy native, so we are lucky to have him.” 
Galvan had served the previous three years as sports editor for the Katy Times and has been in journalism for 33 years. His career started in 1984 at the Cleveland Advocate. From there, Galvan has worked for the Observer Newspaper Group, The Sealy News, the Pasadena Citizen, Stephenville Empire-Tribune, Jasper Newsboy and the Times. 
While serving as managing editor for the daily product in Pasadena, Galvan directed the Citizen to numerous TPA awards. While at the Jasper Newsboy, he was the editor as the paper earned the Hearst Newspaper Group’s Watchdog Award. 
Galvan graduated from Galena Park High School in 1981 and from the University of Houston in 1984. Silva’s career in sports journalism began in December 2005 with The Katy Courier. From there, he served as sports editor at Houston Community Newspapers in Klein and CyFair before moving on to become sports editor at the Laredo Morning Times and deputy sports editor at The Monitor newspaper in McAllen. He and his wife Shonda live in Sealy with their three children. 
Silva has primarily served as the beat writer for high schools and the NBA D-League’s Rio Grande Valley Vipers the last four years at The Monitor, where he won an APSE award and APME award for his feature work on a home school basketball team and a group project that explored recruiting in the Rio Grande Valley. He and his wife, Julie, moved to the Katy area last month. It’s a return home for Silva, who graduated from Mayde Creek High in 2001 and attended other schools there. 
Schaub noted Galvan and Silva will be instrumental in the newspaper’s introduction of the Just Katy Sports app for mobile phones. “We are in the process of developing a sports application that should be available for iPhones and Androids within the next month,” Schaub said. “It will feature all eight of our Katy high schools with information for every sport in the school district.”

SAMANTHA ISBELL
GRAFORD – With the re-launch of the Lake Country Sun in Graford, Samantha Isbell, formerly with the Graham Leader, has taken on reporting duties for the publication covering the Possum Kingdom Lake area.
Graham Leader Publisher Tyler Patton announced the changes Jan. 18, when the Sun began publishing again as a weekly. 
Isbell began her newspaper career as an intern at her hometown paper, the Breckenridge American, while a sophomore in high school. She joined the staff of the Graham Leader in 2013 as classified manager, with the goal of becoming a reporter in the editorial department. 
Following a two-year absence when she and her husband Preston welcomed their new daughter, she returned to the Leader as a reporter in 2016.
Isbell said while she’s enjoyed the last several months of reporting at the Leader, she’s delighted to be covering her own community. “I am excited to have the opportunity to provide the lake community and surrounding areas with factual news they can rely on,” she said. 

SHAUN JEX
COPPELL – Shaun Jex has been named editor of the Citizens’ Advocate, Jean Murph, owner and publisher, announced.
Jex has been a contributing writer for several years, doing feature stories, a history column and covering Coppell Planning and Zoning Commission meetings. He will now expand that role to guiding the weekly content of the paper and overseeing news coverage, Murph said.
“The small-town paper is an American institution, and I love how the Citizens’ Advocate keeps the tradition alive,” said Jex. “We are given a unique opportunity to provide a voice for the community while also acting as the community’s eyes and ears.”
Jex and Murph will share numerous roles at the newspaper, with Murph continuing to manage the business while maintaining some writing responsibilities. 
Originally from Anchorage, Alaska, Jex was eight years old when he moved with his family to Coppell in 1990. He attended CISD schools and graduated from Coppell High School in 1999. First majoring in journalism at the University of North Texas, he graduated with a degree in English composition and has worked in marketing and sales before beginning his work with the Citizens’ Advocate. 
A lover of history, Jex began in the summer of 2014 writing a book, Legendary Locals of Coppell, and became involved in the Coppell Historical Society. Jex also writes the newsletter for First United Methodist Church of Coppell, where he teaches guitar to elementary and middle school students through the church choir and music program.
He and his wife, Kara, also a CHS graduate, have two children, Hayden, 9, and Kaitlyn, 3.

NORMA L. MARTINEZ
ARANSAS PASS – Norma L. Martinez has joined the staff at the Aransas Pass Progress and Ingleside Index, taking over for Jesica Beaty, who served as managing editor for a year and a half. 
Martinez’s duties will consist of local news coverage, sports, features and social media, Editor-Publisher John Bowers said. “I am very excited to have someone with her years of experience here at our newspapers,” he said.
Martinez was formerly employed at the Rockport Pilot, beginning in 1996 as a reporter. Within the year, she was named managing editor, a position she held for more than 20 years. During her tenure, she covered county, city, school district, and navigation district news, as well as sporting events for the high school. 
Martinez and her husband Mario live in Rockport. They have two adult daughters and an 11-year-old son, a sixth grader at RockportFulton Middle School. 
Martinez is a native of Pleasanton, where she graduated from high school. She attended the University of Texas and earned a bachelor of journalism degree in 1988 from the UT College of Communication. She began her media career at the Beeville Bee-Picayune, covering the school and county beats for eight years.

ALYSSA MASSINGILL
JACKSONVILLE – The Jacksonville Progress recently welcomed Rusk native Alyssa Massingill as full-time reporter, Progress Editor April Barbe announced. 
Massingill, a 2007 Rusk High School graduate, fills the position left by Jo Anne Embleton, who retired at the end of 2016. Massingill has worked as a freelance writer and photographer for the Progress for the past two years and attributes her interest in becoming a full-time reporter to that experience. 
Massingill began in photography about four years ago, mainly working in landscape photography and on portraits. She has an associate of science degree from Lon Morris College. 
She is the daughter of Randy and Tammy Rasberry of Rusk. She and her husband Ryan Massingill live in Rusk. 

BEN WOODS
LINDEN – Ben Woods has been promoted to news editor/advertising manager of the Cass County Sun, Publisher Randy Grider announced. 
Woods has served as part-time office manager since June. Grider noted that for the past few months, Woods has helped sell advertising and contributed articles and photos. 
Prior to joining the Sun, Woods and a partner operated a small lawn service. He also was a sales representative for Woods Furniture, Co. in Atlanta until the business was destroyed by fire in 2014. 
He is a 2007 graduate of Atlanta High School and studied journalism at Texarkana College. Woods is married to Rachel Woods, office manager of the Citizens Journal in Atlanta. They have three children.

TOMMY WELLS
COLEMAN – The Coleman Chronicle & Democrat Voice recently welcomed veteran newspaper editor Tommy Wells as editor/general manager. 
“We feel very fortunate to have someone like Tommy who was available, ready and eager to step in and take the reins of our newspaper.” said Scott Wesner, who purchased the paper recently with Dallas businessman Scott Woods. 
Wells most recently he served as sports information director and public information officer for Ranger College. 
“I’m looking forward to working in Coleman and getting to know the people there,” said Wells, who noted he would still maintain his position with the college. 
In addition to serving as managing editor for three years at the Colorado City Record, Wells has worked in North Dakota, Alaska and Kansas, as well as other Texas news publications. He was sports editor for the Big Spring Herald, Bay City Daily Tribune and Mineral Wells Index. He also served as managing editor at several dailies, including the Devils Lake Journal in Devils Lake, N.D. and the Russell Daily News in Russell, Kan. 
The 30-year veteran of the newspaper industry began his career covering Ranger High School sports for the Ranger Times, now part of the Eastland County Today publication. Since then he has done work for Sports Illustrated, The Dallas Morning News and the Abilene Reporter-News. In addition, Wells and his Ranger High School classmate Joe Nash published Six-Man Illustrated magazine for many years and also staged international six-man all-star games in the U.S. and Canada. 
A U.S. Navy veteran, he is a 1985 graduate of Ranger High School and is an alumnus of Ranger College, in Eastland County. He and his wife have four children and three grandchildren.

JESSE WRIGHT
PORT ARTHUR – Jesse Wright became the editor of The Port Arthur News on Jan. 16, Rich Macke, publisher, announced.
Wright came to Port Arthur from The Bogalusa Daily News in Louisiana. 
A native of California, Wright was raised in Corpus Christi, where he worked on the school newspaper in high school. He is a graduate of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, earning a bachelor of science in communications and working in student publications. He later earned a master’s degree in southern studies from the University of Mississippi.
He started his professional newspaper career with the Banner-Press in Brenham, where he worked for two years before joining the Peace Corps, first assigned to Haiti for six months and later volunteering in East Timor. Afterward he worked as a teacher and correspondent, writing for several publications on a freelance basis.
He returned to newspapers fulltime in 2012, working for the Clarksdale Press Register in Clarksdale, Miss. until 2015, when he was hired by Boone Newspapers to work for the Picayune Item in Mississippi and The Bogalusa Daily News in Louisiana.
Wright said his new position is “a tremendous opportunity to make a difference and to fight for the community.”
“I always liked getting involved in community events and community news,” he added.