Well wishes follow Chief publisher in new Ankeny venture

0
1256
Lisa Widick, left, of the Perry Chief, who joined the Perry Optimist Club in November 2017 along with Paige Nagel, center, of the Perry Lutheran Home and Tari Mason of Perry Perk coffeehouse, announced her April departure from the local weekly newspaper in a Friday column.

Scott Anderson

The publisher of the Perry Chief and Dallas County News announced Friday her planned departure from Gatehouse Media Inc., owner of the two Dallas County weeklies and a number of other central Iowa newspapers.

“My last day with the Perry Chief newspaper will be Friday, April 5,” Gatehouse Publisher Lisa Widick said in a farewell column published this week. Widick took the reins at the newspapers in 2016.

“I have taken a position with a company in Ankeny and will be starting there on Monday, April 8,” she said.

Widick thanked her longtime friend and “boss,” Scott Anderson, a Gatehouse Media Inc. senior group president officed in Ames. GateHouse is owned by New Media Investment Group, a holding company based in New York.

Widick also thanked her friends in the Perry community.

“While I will work in another town, I will still live in Perry,” her column said, and “will be a subscriber of this newspaper for as long as I live in this community.”

Widick oversaw a number of changes during her tenure with Gatehouse Media Inc. in Dallas County, including the June 2016 move of the Dallas County News offices from Adel to Perry and the gradual consolidation of the two papers’ editorial and advertising staffs.

“We wish Lisa all the best in her new endeavor,” said Jim Caufield, editor and publisher of ThePerryNews.com. “As important as it is, community news reporting is under tremendous financial pressures these days, and Lisa would have felt these as much as anyone while with Gatehouse. We all hope small-town journalism can survive.”

 

 

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.