We’re excited today to announce the hiring of Megan Bannister and Fred Bauters, our new editors in Des Moines and Kansas City, respectively.
Megan, whose name might be familiar as she’s been a contributor since October, joins our team with a few months of school still on her plate. When she applied in January, we kindly told her we were looking for someone who could start full-time right away. But then she took on a challenge, writing six freelance articles for us in one week, convincing us she deserved an interview.
We quickly learned her LinkedIn summary – “I am an ambitious, driven senior at Drake University” – is true, and her passion for journalism and interest in the Des Moines startup community were just two of the assets that made her the right fit for the position.
A day after we posted the job opening in December, Fred sent me an email to make sure we knew he was interested in the position. “I’m incredibly excited about the possibility of joining your team; the startup scene is what I’ve come to love about KC,” Fred said.
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He worried he was too late. He was early. Over the next month, we learned more about Fred and his deep interest in startups – he’s helped Local Ruckus by editing some blog posts and his wife works for MindMixer – and it wasn’t long until we knew he’d be our Kansas City editor. Fred joins our team after positions with KC Business magazine and a newspaper in Indiana. He’s an alumus of the E.W. Scripps School of Journalism at Ohio University.
With Megan and Fred on board, we acheive our goal of having an editor on the ground in each flagship city of the Silicon Prairie. This is the start of an important chapter for our newsroom. In addition to an increase in coverage of the region’s startup community, I’m confident you’ll see many more good things come from our team in the months ahead.
Thanks to the many writers who applied for the positions, and this region’s startup community for giving us the opportunity to tell your stories. If you have a news lead or tip, don’t hesitate to shoot it our way: editor@siliconprairienews.com.
Help us welcome Megan and Fred to Silicon Prairie News with a comment below or find them on Twitter, @meganebannister and @fredbauters.
Credits: Photos courtesy of Bannister and Bauters.
