ONA board reduces dues, appoints Cooper
ONA’s daily and weekly newspaper members will see a 6% reduction in their membership dues for 2010, thanks to action taken by the board of trustees at its fall meeting Oct. 16 in Cuyahoga Falls. The dues reduction was among the recommendations forwarded by a task force made up of six board members.
“During this current year we’ve seen many of our members struggling with the down economy so the purpose of our task force was to analyze the impact on ONA operations while assisting our members,” said Ken Douthit, ONA president, who chaired the task force. “As always, we’re striving to be responsive to our membership,” he added.
The actions taken by the board follow several meetings of the task force during the summer months. Besides Douthit, those serving on the task force were ONA vice president Dick Morris, treasurer David Dix, and trustees Frank Beeson, Keith Rathbun and Del Varney.
In additional action at the Oct. 16 meeting, Brian Cooper, president of Cox Ohio Publishing and publisher of the Dayton Daily News, joined the board as its newest member. He has been appointed to the unexpired term left by Mike Joseph, formerly president of Cox Ohio, who earlier this year became publisher of Cox’s Atlanta Journal Constitution.
A native of Dayton, Cooper joined the Cox organization in 1984 as assistant controller of the Dayton Daily News. Prior to returning to Dayton in his current capacity, he served as president of Cox North Carolina Publications and publisher of the Greenville Daily Reflector.
Cooper’s previous experience in the Cox organization includes a stint as senior vice president of Cox Newspapers. He was responsible for overseeing Cox’s nine community newspapers, the newspapers’ financial operations, as well as the company’s interest in Cox CustomMedia and PAGAS Mailing Services.
Cooper has a Bachelor of Science in accounting and a Master of Business Administration in finance from Wright State University. Among his civic activities, he is a board member of the Wright State University Foundation.
