01/05/06

Hank Ackerman new New Orleans bureau chief; Adam Yeomans oversees Kentucky operations

NEW YORK -- Hank Ackerman, chief of bureau in Kentucky for The Associated Press, has been appointed chief of bureau in New Orleans, where he will return to oversee AP operations in Louisiana and Mississippi and help direct coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Adam Yeomans, chief of bureau for Tennessee, will add oversight of AP news and business in Kentucky to his responsibilities under a reorganized two-state operation. As bureau chief for Tennessee and Kentucky, Yeomans will be based in Nashville.

The appointments were announced Thursday by John O. Lumpkin, vice president/business operations for U.S. Newspaper Markets. The changes will be effective Jan. 8.

Ackerman, who succeeds Charlotte Porter as New Orleans bureau chief, has been bureau chief in Kentucky since 2003 and returns to New Orleans after a five-year stint as bureau chief there in the 1980s.

Ackerman joined the AP in New York in 1972, was appointed news editor in Buenos Aires and later served as bureau chief in Lima, Peru, and Caracas, Venezuela, before returning to the United States in 1980. He served as Cleveland correspondent and bureau chief in New Orleans, Detroit and Atlanta before becoming a general executive in New York in 1993, serving as director of marketing of AP's multimedia services. He holds degrees from Davidson College in Davidson, N.C., and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.

Yeomans joined the AP in Tallahassee, Fla., in 1993 after working for the Orlando Sentinel and Reuters. He was appointed news editor in Miami in 1996, and assistant bureau chief in Miami in 1997.

He was named chief of bureau for Tennessee in 2005. He serves on the board of the Tennessee Coalition for Open Government.

A native of Fort Myers, Fla., Yeomans is a graduate of the University of Florida.

Contact: Jack Stokes, AP Corporate Communications, 212.621.1720