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The Nevada Press Foundation (NPF) announced today that six new members have been elected to its Board of Trustees, including two members hailing from outside the world of Nevada journalism. NPF also amended its bylaws at the group’s recent annual meeting.
The new members elected to the Board for two-year terms are:
- Ric Anderson, Las Vegas Sun
- Brian Duggan, Reno Gazette Journal
- Terri Janison, Janison Enterprises
- Jon Ralston, Nevada Independent
- Steve Ranson, Lahontan Valley News
- Michael Yackira, ex-NV Energy
Glenn Cook, Las Vegas Review-Journal; Sherman Frederick, Battle Born Media; Paul Mitchell, University of Nevada-Reno; and Jim Sanford, ex-Mason Valley News, are the remaining board members. Frederick is Chairman, Cook is VP/Treasurer and Sanford is Secretary of the Foundation.
Brief bios of all board members are included at the end of this release.
“We’re excited by the talent and experience now on the board,” said Frederick. “They bring the kind of firepower to the group that will ultimately be of enormous benefit to Nevada.”
NPF’s bylaws were also amended during the 501(c)(3) charitable organization’s recent annual meeting, held via Zoom on November 18. Aside from a number of technical corrections, the changes included adding a clause at the beginning of the document stating the group’s purpose: “The Nevada Press Foundation is organized to support, celebrate and promote the role of journalism in Nevada.”
The role of the Foundation was dramatically enlarged earlier this year when it purchased several programs from the Nevada Press Association (NPA), a trade association that shares management and offices with NPF. Included in that transaction were NPA’s annual convention, and its journalism and advertising contest — programs the Foundation has previously sponsored but will manage going forward. Established in 1924, NPA will now focus primarily on public policy matters, including advocating on behalf of its member news organizations.
The Foundation also recently sold its headquarters building in downtown Carson City for $1.2 million.
Bios of NPF Board of Trustees
Ric Anderson was named the editorial page editor for the Las Vegas Sun in 2016 after serving four years as managing editor. Before that he spent more than 20 years as a reporter in Kansas, covering beats ranging from police and courts to major-college sports. Anderson is a former president of the Nevada Press Association, where he still serves on the board.
Glenn Cook was named executive editor and vice president for news of the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2018 after two years as managing editor. A Review-Journal employee since 1996, Cook wrote for the editorial page for more than 11 years and was a regular columnist for seven of those years. Before joining the Review-Journal, he was a reporter for The Arizona Daily Star in Tucson. Cook was also former president of the Nevada Press Association.
Brian Duggan is the executive director of the Reno Gazette Journal, where he formerly served as investigations editor. In 2011, he joined the Gazette-Journal to cover Reno City Hall. Previously, Duggan covered business for the Nevada Appeal and state politics for the Bismarck Tribune in North Dakota. He was a former president of the Nevada Press Association, where he still serves on the board.
Sherman Frederick owns Battle Born Media, a group of several newspapers in rural Nevada. He worked for the Las Vegas Review-Journal for 34 years, starting as a student intern before becoming a reporter, then moving to editor and finally publisher. In 2018, he was inducted into the Nevada Press Association’s Hall of Fame. He was a former president of the association, where he still serves as a board member.
Terri Janison is a community relations strategist with more than 30 years of experience in education/child advocacy and non-profit leadership. She served as president and CEO of an autism foundation in Las Vegas and deputy director of the United Way of Southern Nevada. Prior to that she was the southern regional director of GOED for Governor Brian Sandoval and both president and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Clark County School District.
Paul Mitchell is the recruitment and retention coordinator for the Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada-Reno, where he also teaches and served as the director of the Maynard Editing Program. He also directed the Maynard Program at the University of Arizona and the University of California, Berkeley. Originally from Philadelphia, Mitchell was a reporter and editor for the Philadelphia Tribune, a news editor for the Asbury Park Press and an editor for The National Sports Daily.
Jon Ralston is CEO of The Nevada Independent, a nonprofit news outlet he founded in 2017. He is nationally known for his analysis of Nevada politics, making regular appearances on Meet the Press and MSNBC. Ralston came to Las Vegas from Michigan in 1984, to become a night-time police reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. He was promoted in 1989 to full-time political columnist. He left the paper in 1999 to write for the Las Vegas Sun until 2012. He also hosted a public affairs show on local TV for 15 years starting in 2000.
Steve Ranson was a teacher and city councilman in Wells, Nevada where he and his former wife published the Wells Progress. He then taught for 20 years in Churchill County and served as sports editor for the Lahontan Valley News, where he was named editor in 2008 and general manager in 2013. Ranson was president of both the International Society of Weekly Newspaper Editors and the Nevada Press Association, where he currently serves as a board member. In 2020, he co-authored the book “Legacies of the Silver State: Nevada Goes to War.”
Jim Sanford is the former editor and publisher of the Mason Valley News in Yerington, where he bought a part interest in the business in 1980. As publisher, Sanford created the satellite newspapers the Fernley Leader and Dayton Courier. In 2015, he was inducted into the Nevada Press Association’s Hall of Fame. He was also mayor of Yerington from 1993 to 1995 and later served on its city council.
Michael Yackira was the President and CEO of NV Energy from 2007 until 2014. Before moving to Nevada in 2003 to become NV Energy’s CFO, he spent 11 years at FPL Group (now NextEra) in Florida, where he was, among other positions, CFO and President of FPL Energy, a company that became the largest owner of renewable energy in the country. In 2013-14, Yackira was chairman of the Edison Electric Institute. He was also chairman of the UNLV Foundation and currently serves on its board of trustees, and is Treasurer of the Smith Center for the Performing Arts and serves on its board of directors as well.