JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (ABP) — In hiring a former Associated Baptist Press intern, the news service's leaders say they have accomplished two long-anticipated goals: re-staffing an important editorial position and opening a full-time Dallas bureau.
Executive Editor Greg Warner announced to ABP's board of directors Jan. 19 that he had tapped Hannah Lodwick Elliott to become the organization's news editor. Elliott will begin work Feb. 1.
Elliott's hiring fills a position left vacant since the fall of 2002, when cuts in funding from many of the news service's traditional sources forced it to lay off long-time managing editor Bob Allen.
“After three years of carrying the daily responsibility of the news service, I am more than a little pleased and relieved to have Hannah's help,” Warner said. “This will allow me to focus more on writing, while giving better leadership to the rest of the staff. We are all going to benefit from restoring our staff to nearly full strength.”
Elliott, 24, will join an editorial staff that includes Warner and Director of Administration and Production Lindsay Bergstrom, both based in Jacksonville, Fla., and Washington Bureau Chief Robert Marus, who works out of the nation's capital.
Elliott graduated magna cum laude from Baylor University in 2004. Since then, she has been employed by Weber Shandwick, one of the world's largest public relations agencies. Elliott has worked out of the company's Dallas office on its American Airlines account.
While in college, Elliott gained news experience as a reporter and editor for the Lariat, Baylor's student newspaper, and in the sports department for the Waco (Texas) Tribune-Herald. She also worked for KVTZ-TV News in her hometown of Bend, Ore.
Elliott, then Hannah Lodwick, served as an ABP intern in the summer of 2003. She has written occasional stories for the news service since then.
She married her high-school sweetheart, Spencer Elliott, Dec. 31. He is employed by the brokerage firm JPMorgan in Dallas.
“I'm very happy to join ABP,” Elliott said. “I'm excited about the chance to explore Baptist life in the region and in the nation. I think that these are exciting times for Baptists and faith-based organizations, and news in general. I think that matters of faith and belief are becoming more and more prominent in the national mindset, and I am looking forward to the chance to write and report on this.”
Warner praised Elliott's skills. “Hannah is a very talented and energetic reporter with an excellent feature touch,” he said. “She takes initiative, follows through with assignments, [and] is enthusiastic, coachable, positive, and poised.”
Elliott will continue to work from Dallas, in office space provided as part of an ongoing partnership with the Texas Baptist Standard newspaper. Marv Knox, editor of the Standard and a member of ABP's board, said he looked forward to deepening the historic relationship between the two news agencies.
“As both an editor who relies on ABP news and a board member who cares deeply about ABP, I am thrilled Hannah has joined the staff,” Knox said. “She will make ABP an even stronger, faster, more reliable and more effective source of news and features. And because she will make ABP stronger, she will contribute to the strength of the many newspapers, like the Standard, that depend upon ABP.”
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