Two experienced journalists joined the publishing staffs at Lumina News and Wrightsville Beach Magazine in July.
Simon Gonzalez brings more than 30 years’ experience to the publications where he will serve as editorial director for both the newspaper and its sister publication, the monthly Wrightsville Beach Magazine. Gonzalez comes from Samaritan’s Purse International Relief in Boone, N.C., where he managed the charitable organization’s online content as senior web editor. He also was employed as a managing editor and senior writer in his 14-plus-year career at the Christian humanitarian organization where he covered relief and development work around the world.
Gonzalez will draw on nearly 17 years of newspaper experience at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he covered sports and served as a copy editor. When not scouring the newspaper for errors, Gonzalez primarily wrote about baseball, including the hometown Texas Rangers.
Gonzalez earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Texas at Arlington, where he studied journalism, English, history and Spanish. Gonzalez enjoys photography, running and kayaking, activities he’ll have plenty of opportunity to pursue in New Hanover County after he adjusts to the change in sea level and warmer temps. His daughter and son-in-law also live in Wilmington.
Though coming from out of state, Lumina News news director and senior reporter Terry Lane’s family roots in Wilmington make him no stranger to the Port City and Wrightsville Beach. In fact, Lumina News covered his last-place finish in March’s Wrightsville Beach Biathlon.
Lane brings nearly 20 years’ communications experience to Lumina News, including his latest venture as a freelance marketer, which he pursued while helping his family care for his late father in Jacksonville, Fla.
After earning a journalism degree from the University of Florida, Lane spent more than eight years working as a reporter for daily publications that included the Highlands Today in Sebring, Fla., the Montgomery Journal in Rockville, Md., and Communications Daily in Washington, D.C.
Lane spun his experience in our nation’s capital into a career as a communications aid in Congress, where he worked on both the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Now that he’s in Wrightsville Beach, Lane will continue his unfinished efforts to successfully stand on a surfboard for more than three seconds. He also enjoys running and watching football, where he dutifully cheers for his Florida Gators and Jacksonville Jaguars, a labor of love that continually goes unrewarded.
