Jennifer McDaniel
Northeast District Director
Jennifer McDaniel is managing editor of the Ottawa Herald, a weekly newspaper in Franklin County, and the Gardner News, another weekly covering southern Johnson County.
A Coffeyville native, Jennifer earned a bachelor’s degree in print journalism from the A.Q. Miller School of Journalism at Kansas State University, where she was a two-time recipient of the Mamie Alexander Boyd Scholarship award.
Following college, she worked as a reporter for the Independence Daily Reporter under the guidance of Herbert A. “Hub” Meyer III, and later, Rudy and Andy Taylor at the Montgomery County Chronicle.
After leaving Kansas for a short time, she returned to work for Phil McLaughlin and Kurt Gaston at the Miami County Republic and its sister publication, the Osawatomie Graphic.
While at the Graphic, Jennifer worked as a reporter, news editor and was eventually named editor. During her time there, she won more than 40 awards from the Kansas Press Association, including the 2005 Kansas Farm Bureau Golden Wheat Award for Excellence in Agricultural Writing.
She also received honors from the Kansas City Press Club and the University of Kansas. Jennifer has also worked as a freelance writer for several Kansas weeklies, including the Ellsworth County Independent Reporter, the Lincoln-Sentinel Republican and Kansas Pregame. She also served as a freelance editor for several books published through Ascend Books in Overland Park.
Jennifer has a passion for community journalism and believes journalists have a responsibility to not only keep the public informed through keen analysis and coverage, but to tell the stories that matter to a community.