04/13/07

Michelle Williams appointed AP's bureau chief for Arizona and New Mexico

NEW YORK -- Michelle Williams, assistant chief of bureau for The Associated Press in Texas, has been named chief of bureau for Arizona and New Mexico.

The appointment was announced April 12 by John Lumpkin, the AP's vice president/business operations for U.S. Newspaper Markets. Williams succeeds Linda Wienandt and has been serving as interim chief of bureau since mid-February.

Williams will oversee the AP's news and business operations for Arizona and New Mexico. She will be based in Phoenix.

Williams began her AP career in 1989 as an editorial assistant in the Nashville, Tenn., bureau. She advanced to a reporting position and in 1991 moved to Milwaukee, where she covered the arrest and trial of serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.

She later served as a correspondent in Chattanooga, Tenn., supervisory correspondent in San Diego, and news editor for Tennessee before moving to Texas as news editor in 2003. She was promoted to assistant chief of bureau for Texas in 2006.

Before joining the AP, Williams worked as a reporter at The Lebanon (Tenn.) Democrat and The Tennessean in Nashville.

Williams is a 1989 graduate of Belmont University in Nashville, where she serves on the New Century Journalism Advisory Board.

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Contact: Jack Stokes, AP Corporate Communications, 212.621.1720