Longtime Register-Herald reporter Audrey Stanton has been named features editor for Beckley Newspapers and its publications.

Her duties will include directing the editorial content of West Virginia South, Beckley Newspapers’ premier magazine Highlighting Southern Appeal, as well as writing and coordinating feature stories for The Register-Herald.

West Virginia South will celebrate its two-year anniversary in October and will welcome Stanton at its helm. The Beckley native will replace West Virginia South’s current director of operations, Lisa McMillion, who is relocating with her family to Florida.

“While we are certainly sad to see someone of the highest caliber like Lisa McMillion leave us, we are just as excited to move Audrey Stanton into a position she has earned the right to fill,” said Beckley Newspapers Publisher and General Manager Frank D. Wood. “Audrey brings a solid background of journalistic experience, along with an energy, that will allow us to continually improve our editorial product for our readership.”

BNI Executive Editor Carl “Butch” Antolini said Stanton is the perfect person for the job.

“We’re confident Audrey is the right person for this extremely important position,” Antolini indicated. “She is well known and well respected in the community, she is homegrown and really has an interest in southern West Virginia and its people. It’s a privilege to work with professional journalists like Audrey, and when I heard Lisa would be leaving us, I knew the person we needed to step up was Audrey.

“Our readers will be the ones who will really benefit from the skills, ideas and creativity she brings to the job.”

Stanton is a 1993 graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, where she served as Student Government president. In 1997, she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with an emphasis in news editorial from West Virginia University, graduating magna cum laude and serving as president of the campus chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

In college, Stanton worked for the Daily Athenaeum in Morgantown and completed student internships at The Charleston Gazette and The Register-Herald. She began her career with Beckley Newspapers in January 1998 as a copy editor, but her desire to write and interact with people led her to seek a reporter’s position. In the years that followed, Stanton covered a variety of stories, including those on the police and education beats, as business editor and most recently as The Register-Herald’s courts and legal issues reporter.

“I never could understand it when some of my classmates talked about how they couldn’t wait to get out of southern West Virginia. I couldn’t wait to get back,” Stanton said. “I love to travel, but I also love coming home. Southern West Virginia is a beautiful place, full of interesting people and amazing scenery. I couldn’t ask for a better job than to be part of this newspaper and a magazine that highlights the best of our culture and invites others to experience it.”

Stanton is the mother of a 5-year-old son, Jon David Schwitzerlette, and the daughter of David and Jo Ann Stanton of Beckley. Jo Ann is the director of the Doug and Lucy Bowers Hospice House, and David is a broker with Realty Pros.