Like all businesses, people come and go from The Columbian. Around the newsroom, it seems to go in cycles: We’ll get a group together for a while, then a couple of people will leave in proximity to each other.
That’s been the case this spring. As I wrote last week, Tom Vogt has just about retired after more than 44 years at The Columbian. At the going-away party, we said goodbye to John Hill, one of our metro team editors who had the unusual skills to have worked both in our newsroom and IT department. And it wasn’t all that long ago that our health reporter, Marissa Harshman, moved on to a job with Clark County.
All these changes prompted me to try a little reorganization with the goal of serving readers better. So here’s a summary of what we have been up to the last few weeks, and a little information behind some of the new bylines you’ll be seeing.
The first move was possibly the easiest. Wyatt Stayner, who joined us last year as our features news assistant, asked for the health beat. Wyatt, an Alabama native and University of Oregon alumnus, had previously covered health care topics when he was a reporter at the daily paper in Jasper, Ind.
His successor is Monika Spykerman, a local foodie and longtime freelancer. Her great love for local events made her the ideal person to produce our Weekend and Beyond tab that is published on Fridays.
With those moves decided, we turned to filling Tom’s reporting spot. Our new hire is Calley Hair, who comes to us from Newport, Ore., where she was the managing editor of the twice-weekly Newport News Times. Frankly, I am hoping to build up our Life and Business sections, and hope Calley will get a chance to be a regular contributor of trend stories that will appear there as well as on the front page. Calley is a Washington State University graduate but is new to Vancouver. I’m hoping she likes it here a lot.
By now my head was starting to spin. I’m happiest when I am reporting stories, writing stories, editing stories or talking to reporters about stories, not filling jobs. But I pressed on.
I realized I was never going to find a metro team editor who also knows everything about the internet, so we split John’s job into two bits: web editor and business news editor. That will leave Metro Editor Mark Bowder doing a couple of more jobs, though I will try to help as I can.
There was a fantastic choice for the web editor. Amy Libby has been the voice of our social media and soul of our online efforts for several years, in addition to being a key member of our copy desk. She has great vision and knows all the passwords, so a promotion was highly in order.
A business editor who writes lots of stories and does a little editing is the same job I held here back in 2000. By re-creating the position now, we should be able to offer more local business news to you. We are hoping to have this position filled in the next few weeks.
As if that wasn’t enough, there are a couple of other new Columbian bylines to watch for. Jacob Nierenberg of Vancouver is with us for 12 weeks as a Pat and Rowland Rebele Internship Fellow from Stanford University, where he recently earned his master’s degree.
Finally, Nathan Howard recently joined as a photojournalist. Like Hair, he comes from WSU, via Newport, Ore.
Did I mention I was a WSU alum too? Pure coincidence, I swear. Go Cougs!
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