07/21/2005

William R. Handy named AP's Illinois chief of bureau

NEW YORK -- William R. Handy, a publishing executive and former reporter and editor t newspapers in Florida and Kansas, has been named Illinois chief of bureau for The Associated Press, based in Chicago.

His appointment was announced July 21 by Tom Brettingen, senior vice president for Newspaper and New Media Markets.

Handy succeeded Jim Reindl, who earlier was named the AP's director of major accounts development.

Handy worked in Florida for The Ledger of Lakeland and The Haines City Herald before joining The Tampa Tribune in 1976. He was state editor at Tampa for three years before moving to The Wichita (Kan.) Eagle, where he was named managing editor in 1985. He held that position six years before becoming the Eagle's director of development to create new publishing businesses.

In 1997 he purchased three college-sports publications and formed IntelliSports Publishing Group. Handy helped start up a new-media company, Internet SportsStations Inc. of Dallas, and was its vice president-content from 1999-2000.

He moved to North Carolina in 2000 to become publisher of National Speed Sport News of Charlotte, a weekly auto-racing newspaper.

Handy is a native of Trenton, N.J., and graduated with majors in journalism and sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He completed an advanced general-management program at the Harvard Business School in 1989.

contact: Jack Stokes, AP Corporate Communications, 212.621.1720