For those of you that have stopped by or called the office lately, you may have noticed a couple of new faces, or voices, but regardless of what that lady on the phone is telling you, it still ain’t Heaven.
This summer we had some changes in staffing. Juliann Owens left for a job in the big times working for USD 350’s school board.
A friend of Juliann’s and recent implant to St. John, Trish Coleman, took over the job of office manager at the St. John News.
Trish and her husband Chris moved to St. John from Las Vegas approximately 9 months ago.
Trish is finding out what many people don’t realize; there’s a lot that goes on at a weekly paper, and no matter how many ads you run telling people deadlines are noon Friday, you always have somebody come in on a Monday looking all forlorn when you tell them they missed the deadline.
We can usually accommodate them with a page rework, but it ain’t heaven.
The other new face and voice in the office is Heaven Petrini, a 2009 graduate of St. John High School.
Heaven is a temporary employee. She is employed through the government’s job creation stimulus program for an eight-week period so I just refer to her as my little Obama girl. Maybe not the best moniker in a mostly Republican state, but it beats some of the things I was called while paying my dues.
Heaven will be helping with many of the things that go on in our office from typing From Our Files columns to setting pages, copyediting, photographer and some sports reporting on the Tigers and Mustangs cross country teams.
She will also be helping Trish with the office duties, but most importantly she will be answering the phone when needed.
At least that way when readers call they will have a one-in-three chance of hearing, “St John News, this is Heaven.”
Terry Spradley is the editor of the St. John News. His e-mail address is sjnewseditor@embarqmail.com
