Milwaukee Newspaper Guild members chose three new Executive Board members Monday in the first contested board election in several years.
The membership also handed full terms to four officers who had stepped up to new responsibilities last month after former President Amy Rinard left the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in the recent buyout.
They are Greg Pearson, a day copy editor who had moved up from 1st vice president to succeed Rinard as president; letters editor Sonya Jongsma Knauss, who had been 2nd vice president and succeeded Pearson; day copy editor Karen Samelson, who moved up from secretary to succeed Knauss; and feature writer Jan Uebelherr, who had been an at-large board member before succeeding Samelson.
New to the board are metro reporter Dani McClain, a steward, and sports designer Ana Menendez. Ozaukee-Washington Bureau reporter Tom Kertscher, a steward, returns after a six-year absence; he previously served one term as 2nd vice president and also has been a steward leader and a negotiator.
Re-elected were Treasurer Amy Hetzner, a Waukesha County Bureau reporter, and at-large board members Janine Ghelfi, an editorial assistant, and Mark Johnson, a metro reporter. Ghelfi and Johnson are both steward leaders and Ghelfi is also on our bargaining committee.
Waukesha County Bureau reporter Erin Richards also sought a board seat but fell one vote short in the balloting.
All of those elected will take office Oct. 1. Pearson thanked three members of the departing board for their service: Rinard, a former Waukesha County Bureau reporter who remains on the bargaining committee; former board member Kawanza Newson, who left her job as a metro reporter to become the Milwaukee Health Department’s spokeswoman; and photo technician Dave Kirner, a former Guild president who is stepping down from his at-large board seat but remaining on the bargaining committee.
Also at the meeting, members elected Pearson, Knauss and Samelson as delegates to the international Guild’s annual sector conference, with McClain as alternate, and Pearson as delegate to the annual convention of the Guild’s parent union, the Communications Workers of America.