Marshall, Ben

Ben Marshall, editor and publisher of the Sterling Bulletin from 1997 to 2017, returned to newspapers after a 30-year career in marketing communications for companies, agencies and associations in consumer products and high-technology industries.

A native of Lincoln, Kansas, he is a graduate of the William Allen White School of Journalism at the University of Kansas. He began his career as an eighth-grade sports stringer for the Kansas City Kansan during the Big Seven holiday basketball tournament.

A U.S. Navy Vietnam veteran, he first served as a communications officer aboard a guided missile cruiser in the South China Sea during the Vietnam War and later as a public affairs officer for the Pacific Fleet’s Cruiser Destroyer Force. While stationed in Saigon, he helped produce a 100-photo exhibition that explained the Navy’s role in the conflict. The Navy in Vietnam: From Jets to Junks premiered at the Washington Press Club and traveled the U.S. for several years with the Navy’s Blue Angels flight team.

In 1969 Marshall joined the Topeka Capital-Journal as a reporter and editor. He later worked in public relations positions for the San Diego Chamber of Commerce and agency positions addressing travel and tourism.

He returned to the Midwest and worked for consumer and high technology companies including Texas Instruments, Hunter Fan Company, defense-aerospace firms and Washburn University.

Marshall bought the Bulletin in 1997 and soon joined the Kansas Press Association. 

In February 2002, the newspaper’s offices were destroyed by a fire that consumed nearly a city block, but The Bulletin was back on the street with a special fire edition a week later.

He served on KPA’s board from 2007 to 2014 and was president in 2012-13. He joined the Kansas Newspaper Foundation board of directors in 2017 and served as president from 2018 to 2020. He is also a trustee of the William Allen White Foundation.

He is the father of three children—Jeff (Anna) of Austin, Texas; Jennifer (Steve Pettit) of Dallas, Texas and Ashley (Blake Chambers) of Tallahassee, Fla., and has seven grandchildren who call him “Papa Ben.”