Charles Apple

Let’s pause a moment to offer the very best of VizEds birthday wishes today to my very good friend Megan Lavey, a designer with The Arizona Star in Tucson. Meg turns 28 today.

Hey, Meg, was this from
your college days?
—

Meg has been at The Star nearly two years. Previously, she worked as a page designer of The (Lewiston, Maine) Sun Journal, as a designer and reporter for The Bristol (Va.) Herald Courier and as a copy editor for The Selma (Ala.) Times-Journal.

Meg is a 2002 graduate of Auburn University the University of Alabama, where she worked on the student paper and — as she’ll proudly tell anyone within shouting distance — was a member of Alabama’s famed Million Dollar Band:

No, no. Not that one. Alabama’s marching band.

A few samples of Meg’s work:

See more, of course, in her NewsPageDesigner portfolio.

A few years ago, when we VizEds moderators offered critiques to young newspaper designers, this very young woman from a small paper in Bristol, Va., hopped right in and gave the most incredibly thoughtful, helpful, insightful, yet honest critiques I had ever seen. And she did them in a very positive way, too.

That’s one of my issues: The lost art of the positive critique. So I was immediately charmed by her manner. Who the hell is this?, I wondered.

So I asked her outright: How did one so young become so good at mentoring?

Meg answered: She watched us critique portfolios. She just copied what we were doing.

And she knows how to brown-nose, too, I thought. Just astounding.

Since then, she’s become one of my closest friends. She’s kind. She’s sweet. She’s supportive. She’s fabulously talented. She won an astounding five — if I’m not mistaken — SND awards in her year at the Lewiston paper.

I want to be like Meg when I grow up.

Meg with some creepy fat guy in “The
Swamp” at SND/Houston, October 2006.
Photo by Jim McBee. I think.
—
I’m not the only one who feels this way. Ernie Smith of Link, here in Norfolk, writes:

Megs is one of my favorite people in the world. She’s a great designer, an even-handed person, a great person to have in your corner, but most importantly, a great friend. It’s weird — we talked online for ages, but when we finally met at SND Houston, we clicked so well. She’ll always be someone I’ll turn to when I need advice. Also, she rules. Did I mention that yet?

Paul Wallen, design director of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, writes:

Megan will always be special to me for the brave leap of faith she took to move to an old mill town in Maine to work with us at the Sun Journal, practically a foreign country from where she grew up in the deep South. She was a key part of a small group of people that I like to think pulled of something pretty unique for a short time at a little 35k paper in Lewiston, Maine.

One of my fonder memories of Megan was when she tried to dig her car out at the Sun Journal parking lot after her first Maine snowstorm.

The photo to which Paul refers. I’ve had this one
so long that I no longer remember who gave it to
me. Paul? Clif Page? Sigh…
—

One of the things that makes Megan unique is her intense desire to learn and grow. She’s passionate about newspapers and design, an incredibly hard worker and has a very generous spirit. Not to mention a good friend and knower of all things Japanese.

Thanks Megan for all your great work in Maine, and happy birthday!

Clif Page, photo director of The Beaver County Times, writes:

Megan loves ‘Bama.

She might like Obama or Arizona or Maine, but she loves ‘Bama, as in Alabama.

And not ‘Bama football, which she likes, but her heart is all for the ‘Bama band.

She has no love for Auburn, which at last check was still in Alabama, but Auburn ain’t ‘Bama.

If Nick Saban directed the ‘Bama band, Megan would know who he is.

And she is the only person I know who could use the words y’all and wicked in the same sentence and make it work.

Y’all will like Megan, she is one wicked good editor.

Clif Page sends along this photo of Megs
comparing herself to the jawbone of a
whale in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. Perhaps
we ought to hold a caption contest…
—

Jim McBee, managing editor of SmartNews in Fayetteville, N.C., writes:

I haven’t been lucky enough to work with Megs, but I think it’s safe to say, beyond her well-documented skills as a journalist, designer and critiquer, she’s good people.

You haven’t been lucky enough to work with Meg? Hell, Jimbo, sounds like Meg’s been the lucky one!

Doug Jessmer, visuals editor of The Pinellas News, writes:

I agree with McNuggets that she’s good people. I first met her when she was working in Bristol, Va., a few years ago when I was still in Pittsburgh. She had a fire in her belly back then, and I think it’s safe to say we knew she had talent to take her places in this business.

She took the challenge of going to Lewiston, Maine, instead of going to a bigger paper, because she wanted to learn more — she wanted to work with Paul Wallen (and who doesn’t?). She took that knowledge and left for Tucson, and now look!

Meg shares a birthday with Wes Rand of the The Hartford Courant, scientist Linus Pauling, racing great Mario Andretti and actors Ali Lartner, John Turturro, Bernadette Peters, Gavin MacLeod, and Gilbert Gottfried — the latter surely being the most annoying voice in all television.

Plus, today is Public Sleeping Day. Do what you will with that information.

Best wishes, Meg, for a happy birthday!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 6:51 am and is filed under News design, Happy birthday, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.