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Gazette editor to speak at business college

Feb. 20, 2009

KALAMAZOO--Rebecca Pierce, editor of the Kalamazoo Gazette, will be the featured speaker Friday, Feb. 27, as part of the Keystone Community Bank Breakfast Speaker Series at Western Michigan University.

Pierce's talk, titled "For Those of You Who Can't Read," begins at 8 a.m. in The Dean's Conference Room in Schneider Hall, home of the WMU Haworth College of Business.

The event, the fourth in the speaker series for the 2008-09 academic year, begins with breakfast at 7:30 a.m. and is free and open to the public. Reservations are required and can be made by calling the college dean's office at (269) 387-5050. Parking is available in the nearby Fetzer Center parking lot.

Pierce was named editor of the Gazette in August 2000. She is the fourth editor since 1912 and the first woman editor in the Gazette's 172-year history. She is a graduate of the University of Michigan and has been a journalist for 32 years.

Pierce first came to the Gazette in 1984 as a reporter covering education, courts, local government and general assignments. She had experience in reporting and editing at two other daily newspapers in West Michigan prior to joining the Gazette staff.

In 1987, she was promoted to assistant metro editor of the Bay City Times. She returned to the Gazette in 1989 as the metro editor. In that role, she was responsible for local news reporting and supervised the largest department in the newsroom.

Pierce was named managing editor in 1999 and, in that capacity, led a massive readership project for the Gazette that resulted in dramatic changes at the newspaper. Readers' needs and wants dictated the changes that were made and not just in the format and content of the newspaper. It changed the way the Gazette newsroom operates--and the transformation continues.

A native of Michigan, she was born and raised in the Detroit area and moved to the west side of the state after graduating from college. She and her husband and two children reside in Kalamazoo.

The Keystone Community Bank Breakfast Speaker Series is underwritten through the generosity of Keystone Community Bank. The series provides an opportunity for the local community to hear prominent business leaders, WMU faculty, alumni and friends of the Haworth College of Business discuss current business issues and corporate strategies as well as key information regarding the continuing progress of the business college.

Media contact: Mark Schwerin, (269) 387-8400, mark.schwerin@wmich.edu

WMU News
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