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Gene Owens - The Mobile Press-Register

Gene Owens is a veteran of more than 50 years of newspaper writing. At his retirement in 2003 from the Press-Register in Mobile, Ala., the Congressional Record described him as "an Alabama treasure." Since retirement, he has continued to self-syndicate Southern-flavored essay columns as well as columns that deal humorously but authoritatively with English grammar and usage. He has also ghost-written more than a dozen published books for professional clients. He began his newspaper career in 1955 with the Athens Banner-Herald while he was a freshman at the Henry W. Grady School of Journalism at the University of Georgia. He later became state editor of the Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, associate editor of the Ledger-Star in Norfolk, Va., editor of the Virginia Beach Beacon, senior associate editor of The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk and editorial-page editor of the Roanoke (Va.) Times. While in Roanoke, he became a member of the board of directors of the National Conference of Editorial Writers and edited its national publication, The Masthead. He left the newspaper business temporarily in 1990 to become senior writer for Creative Services, a consulting firm in High Point, N.C. He re-entered journalism in 1994 as assistant managing editor of the Mobile Press-Register and later became political editor, overseeing coverage of local, state and national government through the local staff and bureaus in Washington and Montgomery. He ended his career as the metro columnist. During his long career, Gene interviewed such luminaries as Adlai Stevenson, former Prime Minister Harold Wilson and, civil-rights leader Andrew Young. With fellow journalists, he participated in interviews with Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping and with Georgi Arbatov, the Soviet Union's leading expert on the United States and Canada. Gene now lives in Anderson, S.C., with his wife, the former Peggy Conner, and is working on a novel.