On May 8, readers will see the return of the Clintonville Tribune-Gazette, the New London Press Star and the Waupaca County Post.
Each of Waupaca County’s three largest cities will now have their own newspapers, while all the smaller communities will be covered by the Waupaca County Post.
Multi Media Channels is also committed to providing more coverage of all the local communities.
Readers will see more staff bylines as the three papers beef up their editorial staffs.
Bert Lehman will be the new editor of the Tribune-Gazette and Press Star.
For the past year, Lehman has been covering Manawa. He will now have Clintonville as his primary beat.
“Clintonville holds a special place in my heart,” said Lehman, a Tigerton native. “My mom was born and raised in Clintonville. When I was a kid my mom, sister and I would visit my two grandmas, who lived in Clintonville, a couple of weekends a month, ending each visit with a trip to A & W for dinner. I still vividly remember going to the dime store and looking at the fish and then convincing my mom to buy me some baseball or football cards.” Lehman said.
Lehman is also editor of Full Throttle, central Wisconsin’s premier racing magazine.
He is an award-winning journalist, who garnered three third-place Wisconsin Newspaper Association awards in 2013.
New London readers will see the return of John Faucher, former editor of the Press Star and current owner of Johnny’s Little Shop of Bait in New London.
Faucher began working at the Press Star fresh out of college in 1997. He was hired to cover the Hortonville beat, became the Hortonville editor a short time later, then became the editor of the Press Star in 2001.
“Although I haven’t been part of the day-to-day beat of the paper since 2011, I’ve continued to contribute to the paper and I have kept my hand on the pulse of the community,” Faucher said.
A lifelong New London resident, Faucher remembers how important the Press Star was to the community.
“My brother Tom and I won the Halloween contest when we were 7 and 8. Our picture was in the Press Star and it was a big deal for our family,” Faucher said. “I think it’s just awesome to see the Press Star coming back, getting back its identity and its relationship with the communities we serve.”
Tim Beimal will be moving to full-time sports reporting, allowing for the same level of in-depth coverage of varsity athletics in Clintonville, New London and Manawa as has been the tradition in Waupaca, Weyauwega-Fremont and Iola-Scandinavia for decades.
All three newspapers will share a common sports section, edited by Greg Seubert, an experienced, award-winning photographer and sports reporter for the Waupaca County Post.
Seubert has been with the Waupaca County Post since September 1996. He began his career after college as editor of The Cornell and Lake Holcombe Courier and The Cadott Sentinel in western Wisconsin in 1986. He went on to work for newspapers in Marshfield, Fort Atkinson and Monroe before coming to Waupaca.
In 2013, Seubert won a second-place WNA award for feature writing.
In addition to the name change, the biggest development readers of the Waupaca County Post will notice is that Manawa has been added to this paper’s news coverage.
Manawa residents are already seeing Holly Neumann attending school board meetings and visiting with local groups in an effort to become better acquainted with the community.
Neumann will be working with Jane Myhra, former editor of the Herald and the Advocate, to provide news and sports for the Iola-Scandinavia and Manawa areas.
Angie Landsverk, who won a first-place WNA award for local government reporting, will continue to cover Waupaca, Weyauwega and Fremont.
She has been writing for the County Post for 18 years. Prior to that she worked at the Oshkosh Northwestern for 7 1/2 years.
Landsverk also writes business and feature stories for the communities she covers.
Robert Cloud will continue to be managing editor of the Waupaca County Post, while consulting with Lehman in an effort to encourage more teamwork among the staff of all three papers.
Cloud came to the County Post in July 1998, after working as editor of the Berrien County Post in Buchanan, Mich., and as a reporter for the Harbor Country News in New Buffalo, Mich. Prior to returning to journalism in 1996 after a 12-year career hiatus, Cloud was national sales manager at Exhibitech in South Bend, Ind.
In 2013, Cloud won two first-place awards for investigative reporting and business coverage, as well as a third-place award for enterprise reporting.
“I believe the readers of all three papers will experience more than just some name changes,” Cloud said. “They will see MMC’s commitment to returning to the traditional values of community journalism: fairness, objectivity, protecting the public interest, and remembering that our readers are also our neighbors, who have diverse values and interests.”
While recovering three community traditions, MMC is also working toward the future.
Readers will see ongoing improvements in the design of the pages, the graphic presentation of information, and a wide horizon of innovations made possible by digital technology and social media.