Ponder elected MPA-MPS president
James R. “Randy” Ponder, publisher of the Sea Coast Echo in Bay St. Louis, has been elected president of the Mississippi Press Association and Mississippi Press Services for 2008-09. He was installed as the new leader of the organizations at the annual President’s Banquet in Biloxi on Friday during MPA’s 142nd Annual Convention.
Ponder accepted the gavel from outgoing president Tom Andrews, publisher of The Picayune Item, who becomes immediate past president and Chairman of the MPA Education Foundation.
Ponder began his newspaper career in 1970 at the Daily Mountain Eagle in Jasper, Ala. He moved to Bay St. Louis in 1972 and was named General Manager in 1983.
From 1987-1990, Ponder was the editor and publisher of the Mobile County News in south Alabama.He returned to Bay St. Louis and later assumed his current roles. He is a past president of the Bay St. Louis Rotary Club, a board member of the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce, and is involved with many business and civic organizations.
A native of Cedartown, Ga., Ponder and his wife , Sherry, live in Waveland. They are the parents three children, Ashley, Jace, and Patrick.
In his acceptance speech Friday evening, Ponder said the longevity of the newspaper business will carry it through tough times and long into the future. “Nobody does what you do,” he told a room full of MPA members, journalists and educators. “Nobody can do it.”
Ponder also said he was grateful for long-term relationships through the years, including the support of his wife and that of Echo publisher-emeritus Ellis Cuevas, an MPA Hall of Fame member, and retired MPA executive director Carolyn Wilson.
Other board members serving on the MPA Executive Committee for the coming year include Vice-President for Dailies Reece Terry, publisher of the Daily Corinthian; Vice-President for Weeklies Wyatt Emmerich, publisher of the Jackson Northside Sun; and Treasurer Jimmy Clark, general manager of the Vicksburg Post.
Elected to a three-year term on the board was Mark Williams, publisher of the Bolivar Commercial. Charlotte Wolfe, Associate Publisher for Journal Publishing Company, was renominated for her second three-year term.