Lynn elected new KPA president for 2015-16

Posted April 19, 2015

Susan Lynn, editor and publisher of the Iola Register, was elected president of the Kansas Press Association Board of Directors Saturday at the association’s annual convention.

Lynn succeeds Dan Thalmann, owner-publisher of the Washington County News and the Linn-Palmer Record, who will serve another year on the board as past president.

The slate elected for the coming year includes:

• Sarah Kessinger, editor and publisher of the Marysville Advocate, first vice president;
• Olaf Frandsen, editor and publisher of the Salina Journal, second vice president;
• Andy Taylor, editor of the Montgomery County Chronicle, treasurer;
• Tim Kellenberger, editor and publisher of the Sabetha Herald, Northeast District director;
• Peter Cook, editor and publisher of the Parsons Sun, Southeast District director. Cook had served the past year as Daily Membership director.
• Denice Kuhns, co-publisher of the Meade County News and Clark County Gazette, Southwest District director.

Lynn also reappointed Scott Stanford of the Lawrence Journal-World to another term as legislative director and Travis Mounts as Nondaily Membership director. A new appointee, Mary Hoisington, will serve a one-year term as daily director.

Two district directors with a year left on their terms are Joey Young of The Clarion, Central District director, and John Baetz of the Lincoln Sentinel-Republican, Northwest District director.

Lynn extends her family’s tradition with The Iola Register into a fourth generation.

She took the helm from her father, Emerson E. Lynn, in 2000. Emerson continued to write editorials for The Register until a few months before his death in April 2013.

Charles F. Scott, Emerson’s grandfather, purchased the Register in 1882. Angelo C. Scott, was publisher from 1938 to 1966.

Before settling in Iola, her father published The Bowie (Texas) News, a weekly, from 1958 to 1965. She has fond memories as a toddler of sleeping on a bed of shredded newspaper while her three older brothers and parents assembled The News each Wednesday night. Before long, she had her own perch on a wood box to join the crew as an inserter.

Lynn studied journalism at the University of Kansas. After a year studying in England she finished university at Western Washington University in Bellingham. She later earned a master’s in library science at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich.

She has three “humanities-oriented” children, Louise Krug, Tim Stauffer and Aaron Stauffer.

She is now married to Brian Wolfe, a family physician, who has three sons.