Charles Apple

Josh Crutchmer over at SportsDesigner posted the news Monday afternoon:

Matt Erickson is resigning his position as director of presentation and visuals at the Times of Northwest Indiana.

MattE’s last day will be July 9, and he is leaving to pursue other journalistic opportunities, including what has become his current first love, his coverage of mixed martial arts. MattE covered it for The Times for several years and this year began writing for mmafighting.com, a division of AOL’s Fanhouse site.

Check out much more in Josh’s post, including more background, a nice quote from Matt himself and a number of glowing comments.

Huntsville Times design director Paul Wallen announced today:

Hi everyone. I just wanted to let you know that you’ll be seeing one more new face on the desk very soon.

I’m very pleased that Bethany Bickley will be joining us as a Design/Copy Editing Intern.

Bethany, who just graduated over the weekend with a Bachelor of Science in Visual Communication from Ohio University, majored in informational graphics and publication design, with a specialization in magazine journalism.

In the recent Michigan State University Society for News Design student contest, Bethany won first place in the Feature Page Newspaper category and second  in Art & Illustration. Bethany was also Art Director of the first and second issues of Thread Magazine, Ohio University’s student-run online publication about fashion in Athens, Ohio.

Bethany, who says she enjoys ceramics and creating “all sorts of artwork,” is in the process of transitioning to Huntsville and hopes to start work at the Times one week from today, on June 21.

At Ohio, of course, Bethany studied under professors Julie Elman and Terence Oliver. A few samples of her work:

Find more on her personal portfolio page.

Bethany is the second design intern Huntsville hired this summer. The first — Kurt Cunningham, who graduated last month from the University of Iowa — started work May 24.

Former Indianapolis Star copy desk staffer — and college instructor and prolific tweeter — Renee Petrina has returned “home” to the Star after an absence of 11 months.

Renee posted to her Facebook page:

I returned to The Indianapolis Star [Wednesday]. I’ll be running IndyStar.com on the weekends (as soon as Channing King and Tom Leyden finish training me, that is).

Her new position is weekend online editor, she writes.

A 2004 graduate of Penn State University, Renee interned with the Washington Post and the New York Times. She spent a year-and-a-half as a copy editor for the Times Union of Jacksonville, Fla., before moving to the Star in 2006. She writes on Facebook that she was…

…honored to have been part of the best nightside team ever.

She left last summer to teach at Ball State University in Muncie. She writes:

I’ve taught media editing, opinion writing, interviewing, event coverage, news research and the News 101 survey course covering mass media in American society.

She also does volunteer work for the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Renee is also one of my favorite Twitter users — she uses the name jourNAYlism. Check out her feed here.