Columnist, features editor, Home editor announced

Mon., Nov. 20, 2006

From Staff Reports The Spokesman-Review

Three Spokesman-Review staff members have been promoted to new assignments this month.

Pia Hansen, the newspaper’s features and Home editor, is now a columnist for the Northwest page. Her work will debut in early December and appear twice a week.

“I’m excited to get this opportunity – and it’s humbling at the same time,” said Hansen, 40. “I have no desire to run the city, so I hope I can produce a column that’s not about me, but about Spokane.”

A native of Denmark, Hansen has lived in Spokane since 1993 and is a graduate of Eastern Washington University, where she majored in journalism and sociology. She joined The Spokesman-Review in 2004 as features editor after working for the Inlander. Hansen recently returned from Lesotho in southern Africa, where she mentored female journalists at a newspaper.

Steve Smith, editor of the newspaper, commended Hansen’s contributions. “Her greatest legacy, I think, will be the Home section, which she developed from idea to execution,” Smith said.

Hansen will be replaced by Ken Paulman, a Spokesman-Review online producer, who oversaw the news, interactive and multimedia content.

“Ken has helped make SpokesmanReview.com one of the best Web sites in the country,” Smith said.

Paulman, 31, has a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Oregon and a bachelor’s degree in theater arts from the University of Nebraska. He came to The Spokesman-Review as a copy editor in 2003 after completing an internship at the Duluth (Minn.) News-Tribune.

Home’s new editor is Cheryl-Anne Millsap, features writer and columnist for The Spokesman-Review.

Millsap’s writing career began with a monthly column for a school district newsletter in Alabama – her home until she moved to Spokane in 1999. Millsap, 49, was a correspondent for the newspaper before becoming a staff writer in 2005.

“I love the Home section,” she said. “It’s my baby. I was able to be in on the planning and design of the section. I take it personally. I want to see it succeed and grow.”