Missourian makes changes in paper's advertising leadership

Changes in the Southeast Missourian's advertising leadership will mean more community focus and progressive ad campaigns, Wally Lage, publisher, said Wednesday in announcing the changes.

Kris Dowell was named the newspaper's advertising director Wednesday, coming to Cape Girardeau from The Peru Tribune, owned by Paxton Media Group in Peru, Ind.

Former advertising director Pat Zellmer becomes special projects director and publisher of four Rust Communications weeklies: Jackson USA, Scott County Signal, Banner-Press in Marble Hill, Mo., and the Missourian-News in Portageville, Mo.

Dowell, a Fort Wayne, Ind., native, began her newspaper advertising career there in 1989 and worked in Indianapolis and Detroit before becoming general manager of the Peddlers' Post classified advertising publication in Fort Wayne. She became advertising director in Peru, a 7,000-circulation daily newspaper, in 1999.

Dowell said she accepted the Southeast Missourian position after talking to the co-presidents of Rust Communications, Jon Rust and Rex Rust.

"I was very impressed with their progressive way of thinking," she said, adding that she wants to carry that attitude into the advertising department and help produce more modern ad designs.

Dowell and her husband, Vinnie, a firefighter for the U.S. Department of Defense, have two children, Ali, 6, and Grant, 4. She plays golf and enjoys outdoor activities, including riding with her husband on their 2001 Softtail Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

Zellmer began her career in 1961 at her hometown newspaper, the Centralia (Ill.) Sentinel, as features editor before beginning her own advertising and public relations agency in Sarasota, Fla. She and her husband, Bill, purchased the weekly Arkansas Sun in Heber Springs, Ark., in 1985 and sold it in 1990.

She came to the Southeast Missourian in 1990 as special projects director and said she is happy to return to the post. She wants to gather more community input on the four weekly papers she will oversee. She also will be in charge of producing a series of historical books along with a number of other projects to be announced. Zellmer also will be working in a continuing role at the Southeast Missourian with major advertising accounts manager Irvin Landewee.

She and her husband have two children, Gretchen Griggs of Jackson, Mo., and Bill Zellmer of South Bend, Ind. She is active in La Croix United Methodist Church.