Mayo appointed to NNA board of directors

Feb 1, 2020

Jeff Mayo, publisher and president of Cookson Hills Publishers Inc. (Sallisaw, Oklahoma)

NNA President Matthew Adelman, publisher of the Douglas (Wyoming) Budget, has appointed Jeff Mayo, publisher and president of Cookson Hills Publishers Inc. (Sallisaw, Oklahoma), as an at–large member to the NNA Board of Directors.

Mayo is a third-generation newspaper publisher. Five of the last six generations of his family have been in the newspaper business in Oklahoma and Arkansas.

His grandparents, the late Wheeler and Florence Mayo, started the Sequoyah County Times in 1932. His father, Jim Mayo, took over the newspaper in the early 1970s. Jeff came back into the business in 2003 and became publisher in 2016.

Jeff received a degree in community journalism from the University of Kansas in Lawrence in 1994 and his Juris Doctor from the University of Minnesota Law School in Minneapolis in 1997. Prior to passing the Oklahoma Bar examination, he worked as a reporter for the Boulder, Colorado, Daily Camera.

Over the past 15 years, Jeff has grown the Sequoyah County Times to seven newspapers in three Oklahoma counties. Cookson Hills Publishers Inc. owns four weekly newspapers — the Vian Tenkiller News, Eastern Times Register, The Eufaula Indian Journal and McIntosh County Democrat — and three twice–weekly newspapers — the Sequoyah County Times, Okmulgee Times and Henryetta Free-Lance — plus one shopper, the Lake Eufaula Clipper.

Jeff was elected to the Oklahoma Press Association Board of Directors in 2007 and served as president in 2013. He was presented with NNA’s Daniel M. Phillips Leadership Award in 2010.

Mayo and his wife, Beth, have two children, Madolyn, 16, and Maddox, 14. Beth is the business manager for the newspapers.

NNA regional directors are: Region 1 Director Jeanne Straus, owner, Straus Media, New York, New York (Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont); Region 2 Director Dennis Richardson, owner of Magic Valley Publishing in Camden, Tennessee (District of Columbia, Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia); Region 3 Director Bo Bolton, publisher, The Monroe Journal, Monroeville, Alabama (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Puerto Rico); Region 4 Director John Galer, publisher, the Hillsboro (Illinois) Journal-News (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio and Pennsylvania); Region 5 Director Jeremy Waltner, co-publisher, the Freeman (South Dakota) Courier (Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wisconsin); Region 6 Director Randy Keck, publisher, the Community News, Aledo, Texas (Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas; Region 7 Director J. Louie Mullen, publisher, Blackbird LLC, Buffalo, Wyoming (Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington) and Region 8 Director Robb Hicks, publisher of Eclipse in Newcastle, Wyoming (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming).

Mayo joins other at–large directors, Jeanie Hankins, publisher of The Wickenburg (Arizona) Sun; Martha Diaz Aszkenazy, publisher of the San Fernando (California) Valley Sun; Reed Anfinson, publisher of the Swift County Monitor-News, Benson, Minnesota; Bradley Thompson, publisher of the Detroit (Michigan) Legal News, representing American Court and Commercial Newspapers; and Beth Bennett, executive director, Wisconsin Newspaper Association, representing the Newspaper Association Managers.