Lifelong Scottsboro resident and former city councilman Brent Miller has been named publisher for The Jackson County Sentinel in Scottsboro, Ala.

Neice Bell, one-time publisher of the Herald-Zeitung has returned to New Braunfels, Texas, to oversee the newspaper. The announcement was made by Southern Newspapers Inc. President Dolph Tillotson.

Janie Gray has retired as publisher of the Baytown (Texas) Sun after nearly four decades of newspaper work.

Sun advertising director Carol Skewes succeeded Gray as publisher.

There's a new face behind the desk at the Seguin Gazette's corner office. Advertising Director Elizabeth Engelhardt has assumed the role of general manager.

Engelhardt is taking over for the Gazette's former publisher, Jeff Fowler.

Dolph Tillotson, who, during a career spanning nearly 50 years has earned a reputation for developing hard-edge community newspapers, was among four journalists inducted last Friday into the Texas Newspaper Foundation Hall of Fame.

Additional inductees were: Victor Fain, former publisher of The Daily Sentinel in Nacogdoches, who died in 2000 at age 84; John C. Taylor Jr., former Seguin Gazette owner and publisher, who died in 2014 at age 88; and longtime Associated Press correspondent Mike Cochran.

Interim publisher and longtime business manager Relan Walker has assumed the role of publisher of The Paris (Texas) News, Dolph Tillotson, president of Southern Newspapers Inc., has announced.

Two additional appointments at the paper also have been announced.

Benchmarking helps newspaper management set goals, track success or failure, and provide objective standards for comparison, publishers heard during a session at the SNPA-Inland Annual Meeting led by Dolph Tillotson, president of Southern Newspapers Inc., and Tim Prince, vice president of Boone Newspapers and publisher of the Shelby County Reporter in Columbiana, Ala.

During this session, Tillotson shared a six-page handout offering the statistical analysis calculations that SNI uses, and he also is offering a blank Excel spreadsheet that can be used by other companies that want to implement something similar.

Members of Texas-based Southern Newspapers Inc. haven't missed a beat even though four of the 16 papers are directly involved in covering Tropical Storm Harvey and its historic flooding.

"We haven't missed any editions of our papers," SNI president Dolph Tillotson said Monday from his home in Galveston, Texas. We've printed them all either in Lake Jackson or in Galveston."

Featured session: Tuesday, Sept. 12

With Dolph Tillotson, president, Southern Newspapers, Inc., Galveston, Texas; PJ Browning, president, Newspaper Division, Evening Post Publishing, Charleston, S.C.; and Doug Phares, president & COO, Sandusky Newspaper Group, Sandusky, Ohio

This Tuesday morning session during next month's SNPA - Inland Annual Meeting will feature a discussion of the ways publishers use numerical benchmarking to track progress, or the lack of it.

What's the proper ratio of salaries to revenue? How do publishers track the impact of programmatic changes on rates and revenue? What is the proper ratio of ads to news content, and how have recent business shifts changed the picture?

These three panelists, who are very knowledgeable of practices in benchmarking, will discuss the tools of this trade, and much more.

For his part, Dolph Tillotson of Southern Newspapers, says he intends to share thoughts on financial benchmarking that he learned from several masters of the art – Jim Boone and Carmage Walls. He said, "I'll discuss the benchmarking we use in Southern Newspapers, Inc., for our print products, how we use them, and several notes from friends who also do regular benchmarking and take a slightly different slant."

Kim Patterson, a Marshall County native and long-time resident, has been named publisher of the Sand Mountain Reporter in Albertville, Ala., Dolph Tillotson, Southern Newspapers Inc. president, has announced.