Stan Martin, community journalist and editor, to retire at year's end

WARWICK-Stan Martin, the editor and publisher of The Warwick Advertiser and The Photo News since 1986, will retire at the end of the year, Straus Newspapers Inc. president Jeanne Straus announced. Bob Quinn of Goshen will succeed Martin as managing editor. He will immediately oversee The Photo News, which covers the communities of Harriman, Monroe, Tuxedo and Woodbury, and will assume responsibility for The Warwick Advertiser after Martin retires at the end of December. Quinn, 52, is a former reporter and editor at the Times Herald-Record in Middletown. He was most recently training and news editor at the Norwich Bulletin in eastern Connecticut. "Stan Martin's journalistic flair, fairness and commitment to the community have been a prime reason for the astounding growth of The Warwick Advertiser and The Photo News over the past two decades," Straus said. "We will miss his enthusiasm and his professionalism." Straus Newspapers publishes eight weeklies in Orange County, N.Y., and Sussex and Passaic counties in northern New Jersey. Straus also announced that two other editors have been promoted and will take on additional responsibilities: • Mario Palomo, editor of The Township Journal and The Sparta Independent in Sussex County, will take on the added title of director of editorial design. He will oversee the design of all Straus newspapers, and manage the company's page designers and paginators. • Pamela Chergotis, editor of The Chronicle, which covers the communities of Goshen and Chester in Orange County, will take on the new title of director of editorial recruitment. She will be responsible for recruiting writers, photographers and editors for all eight Straus publications. The moves come at a time of continued growth for Straus, where the combined circulation of all eight weeklies today is more than 75,000. In 1986 the company purchased the Advertiser Photo News Group. At the time, the four weeklies n The Warwick Advertiser, The Monroe-Photo News in Orange County, N.Y., and The Advertiser and The Vernon News in Sussex County, N.J. - had a combined circulation of 25,000. In 1991 Straus acquired The Sparta Independent. Since then the company has created The Township Journal (1988), The Chronicle (2000) and The West Milford Messenger (2003). Straus noted that "just as Tip O'Neill said that all politics are local, so the news that matters most in peoples' daily lives is often that closest to home. That's what we aim to deliver. As a business matter, nothing sells like local news and advertising, even in the age of the Internet, cable and cell phones." Martin and Straus were part of the team that took over the Advertiser Photo News Group in 1986. Now 62, Martin has spent more than 40 years in newspapers as a reporter, editor, business manager, advertising director, general manager and publisher in Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina, Virginia and Florida as well as New York. During his tenure as editor and publisher of The Warwick Advertiser and The Photo News, Martin has mentored a generation of aspiring journalists, all the time finding stories by getting to know people famous and not so famous who called places like Monroe and Warwick home. One of his habits has been to end his week by dropping in on Main Street merchants and saying "Hello." "I was born in Bermuda, traveled in 48 states and almost that many countries, but this is my adopted home," Martin said. "The beauty of the scenery in Orange County is only topped by the beauty of our residents. "I feel blessed to have been paid to do what I enjoy most - being a community journalist," Martin added. "You do not replace an editor like Stan Martin," said Quinn. "You hope to build on his work and his reputation. It's always been more important to understand what people mean when they say something, rather than simply record what they say." "This is their home. What happens, no matter how large or small, is important to them. And a community newspaper needs to reflect that. And there's certainly no want for news here. "Those things are what attracted me to take on The Photo News and The Warwick Advertiser," Quinn added. "That, and the chance to come back to Orange County, which has been my home for nearly 30 years." Palomo, 42, joined Straus Newspapers in 2000. He had been managing editor of weeklies in Phillipsburg and Belvidere, N. J. During his tenure there, circulation doubled. Chergotis, 45, joined Straus in 2000 when the company started The Chronicle. She has won state awards for editorial writing and for special sections while working at the River Reporter in Sullivan County. Chergotis also taught English in such diverse places as the state University of New York at New Paltz and Istanbul Technical University