FROM THE

June 24, 2004

New editor named

by JUDY HODGSON

After two-plus years as Journal editor, Keith Easthouse is moving on to the next stage of his career, which will likely include free-lance work. (He recently had a story published in Coast and Ocean magazine.) Under his guidance the Journal continued its growth in circulation (from to 18,000 to 21,000), in number of pages and in quality journalism. (See last week's column, "Bragging rights.") Keith's work, particularly his expertise in complicated environmental stories such as last week's "Plight of the Plover," will be missed.

Thankfully, we didn't have far to look in our search for a new editor. Emily Gurnon has been a part-time senior staff writer and copy editor for us for more than a year.

Emily earned a master's of journalism and a master's of art (Latin American studies) from Berkeley in 1993. She was a reporting intern for the Chicago Tribune and a staff writer for the Contra Costa Times and the San Francisco Examiner. Since moving to Humboldt County with her husband and two children in 2000, Emily has worked as a free-lance reporter for the Los Angeles Times and a part-time instructor at Humboldt State University.

Emily has won numerous awards for her writing, including back-to-back awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association in 2003 and 2004 for work published in the Journal.

Born and raised in Minnesota, Emily brings the number of Journal staffers with Midwest roots to four. Former copy editor Howard Seemann, who still drops by occasionally to help out, is a Minnesota native. Susan Dodd, advertising manager, spent 25 years of her career there before heading back west, and advertising rep Ryan Palmer is another transplant.

Must be something about those Minnesota winters.

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