LAKE CHARLES, La.—Veteran Southern newsman Ken Stickney is the new executive editor of the American Press, publisher Thomas B. Shearman III said Tuesday.
Stickney, 57, has been editor-in-chief of Shearman newspapers since April, after consulting for Shearman properties in Lake Charles and in Trinidad, Colo. As executive editor, he will direct the American Press’ daily operations and retain oversight over Shearman newsrooms in Colorado and Hobbs, N.M., the American Press reported ().
“We are pleased to welcome Ken to the community and to the newspaper,” Shearman said. “In his more than three decades of newsroom experience, he has established an outstanding record for local news reporting, editing and commentary and for newsroom management.
Stickney came to Shearman newspapers after 11 years as managing editor of The News-Star in Monroe. Before that, he worked at The Tuscaloosa News in Alabama, the Gwinnett Daily News and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in Georgia, and two Mississippi papers—the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal in Tupelo and the McComb Enterprise-Journal.
Stickney has won state and regional news awards in several states in such areas as breaking news reporting, depth reporting, commentary and editorial writing. A collection of his editorials in Monroe won first place nationally in the 2009 American Society of Newspaper Editors competition.
Stickney graduated summa cum laude from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., with a degree in philosophy. He earned a master’s in communication from The University of Alabama, where he was a Graduate Council fellow; and a master’s in history from the University of Louisiana at Monroe. He has been an adjunct instructor in communication at ULM and in history at Louisiana Delta Community College in Monroe.
He is serving his third term as president of the Louisiana-Mississippi Associated Press Managing Editors.
A Massachusetts native, Stickney is married to Louisiana native Ellen Carey Stickney, the dean of enrollment management at Louisiana Delta Community College. The couple, who have four grown children, will live in Moss Bluff.
