06/23/06

Jodie DeJonge named AP's chief of bureau for Washington state and Idaho

NEW YORK -- Jodie DeJonge, bureau chief for The Associated Press in Trenton, N.J., has been named chief of bureau for Washington state and Idaho.

DeJonge's appointment was announced June 21 by John O. Lumpkin, the AP's vice president/business operations for U.S. newspaper markets. She succeeds Nancy Trott, who has been appointed regional news director for Western AP bureaus.

DeJonge, who will be based in Seattle, joined the AP in Milwaukee in 1989 after working for The Northwest Herald in Crystal Lake, Ill. Before being named bureau chief for New Jersey in 2004, she was an assistant bureau chief in Philadelphia and news editor in AP bureaus in Indianapolis and Albuquerque, N.M.

Born in Grand Rapids, Mich., she graduated from Bethany College in Bethany, W.Va., and spent two years in the Peace Corps in Liberia.

Contact: Jack Stokes, AP Corporate Communications, 212.621.1720