Over the recent summer months, careful readers of the Deseret News may have seen the names of new writers and editors in the paper and noted familiar names undertaking new assignments.
Here's an update on promotions and new arrivals.
Wendy Ogata, formerly associate city editor, has become assistant managing editor, with specific responsibility for Olympic coverage, major projects and our special writers unit. She will head our five-person team covering the Summer Olympics in Sydney.
Chris Hicks, known to readers over the years for his perceptive movie reviews, has become feature editor, masterminding our entire arts and entertainment coverage and orchestrating a dozen specialist staffers in this area as well as a team of freelancers.
Greg Kratz, an avid sports fan, formerly associate business editor and most recently assignment editor on the city desk, has become sports editor, running another dozen-or-so specialist reporters and columnists in that area and a platoon of part-time journalists.
Jay Hinton, sports production manager, is taking over as preps editor, a key position responsible for coverage of high school sports.
Valerie Phillips joins us as food editor and feature writer. She comes to us from the Ogden Standard-Examiner, where she was food editor, with a list of prizes to her name. She has an extensive background as a journalist, including a stint in Saudi Arabia.
Angela Curtis joins us as assistant city editor. Angela comes from the Salt Lake Tribune, where she was assistant news editor. She is a former assistant managing editor of the Moscow-Pullman (Idaho) Daily News.
Brice Wallace has joined us as a business writer from the Standard-Examiner, where he was business editor. His wife, Nancy, is also a journalist, and over the years they have worked at competing newspapers and twice at the same newspaper, in West Virginia, Connecticut and Utah.
Jason Olson joins our photo staff from the Provo Daily Herald. Jason was born and raised in Payson, became captivated by photojournalism at Utah Valley State College, where he became photo editor of the college paper before moving on to become a photographer, and then photo editor at the Herald.
Pat Reavy comes to us as a police reporter after nine years on the same beat at KSL Newsradio and KSL TV. He is a Utahn who graduated from Brighton High School and got his journalism degree from Michigan State University.
Diane Urbani was a feature writer for dailies in California before acquiring her master's degree in journalism at UC Berkeley, writing at the same time for the Oakland Tribune and the San Francisco Chronicle. Upon joining our staff, she is currently covering the east-Salt Lake County suburbs.
Angie Welling was editor of the student newspaper at Weber State University and president of the student chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists for two years. She graduated in June, sparkled as an intern at the Deseret News this summer, and we've hired her as a general assignment and courts reporter.
Laura Hancock also shone as a Deseret News intern this spring and summer, so we've hired her to cover the night police beat. She's finishing her degree in journalism at the University of Utah, where she worked as an editor on the student newspaper and wrote freelance pieces for local newspapers and magazines.
Jesse Hyde was managing editor of Brigham Young University's NewsNet and a campus correspondent for the Salt Lake Tribune while gaining his BA in communications at BYU. After an internship at Newsweek in New York and an internship at the Provo bureau of the Deseret News, he is joining us as a reporter in Provo.