Passings: Richard Shahan ’49

The DPAA is sad to announce the passing of Richard H. Shahan '49, a former DP reporter, columnist and editor. Shahan, 86, died January 9 in Austin, TX.

Shahan was a World War II Navy veteran of the Pacific campaign. In his four years at DP in the post-war 1940s, Shahan was a reporter, columnist, Junior Editor, Senior Editor, and City Editor. He graduated with a BA in Journalism back in the era when Penn granted journalism degrees. Shahan moved to New York, where he worked for Pfizer, American Airlines, and Alexander & Alexander, and picked up an MBA from NYU along the way.

With his wife, Gloria, he moved to Asheville, NC, where they owned and managed a historical gift store and were active as business community and civic leaders. Many years later, they moved to Austin, TX, where he formed his own communications consulting company, doing PR and marketing work. In the DP Alumni Directory a decade ago, he wrote, "I'm still creating, and still chewing nails & spitting rust at 75."

Several years later, at an age when most people would have long since retired, Shahan went back to school in order to become a teacher. "I decided to make a second career change to a job where I can make a real difference in the lives of children," Shahan wrote in the 2006-07 DP Alumni Directory. "I studied for a year to gain accreditation in my specialized area — U.S. History — that's been my passion for decades. Even at 80, I'm still going strong and love my kids and my challenging work. I can't wait to get to work each day."

Gloria Shahan told the DPAA that her late husband always said he hoped "to be 'the last man standing' — and I guess he almost was!"

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Brad Lebo is big in miniature golf

In the world of miniature golf, Brad Lebo is a giant.

The 1983 Penn grad and former DP sportswriter was attending Penn Dental School in 1989 when he joined some friends for a round of golf outside of the city. On the way home, they stopped at a Putt-Putt miniature golf course. His his life hasn't been the same since.

Lebo discovered that the course was hosting its weekly golf tournament. He decided to return the following week to compete himself.

Before long he was traveling with some of the players to other miniature golf tournaments. Two years later, he turned pro. He has played a full tour schedule ever since -- roughly 50 events a year, year in and year out.

"I kind of got full blast into it right away," he says.

"I thought there was a possibility that this could be something I could excel at, because putting was the strength of my golf game. And once I started competing, I developed the skill-set to play well. It just drew my interest from day one."

In 2006, Lebo became the first player in his sport to win the two major tournaments in the same year: the Professional Putters National Championship and the U.S. ProMiniGolf Association U.S. Open Championship.

He has been the Virginia Player of the Year four times and the North Carolina Player of the Year twice.

In all, Lebo has won 89 tournaments and $125,000, including $5,500 in a skins game televised by ESPN. His total earnings would be just a good weekend for Tiger Woods -- but in the world of competitive miniature golf, it's huge, placing Lebo in the Top 10 in career prize money among all active pros.

From the President

Support the DP & DPAA with a 2013 membership contribution

As we near the end of 2012, the Daily Pennsylvanian Alumni Association (DPAA) has launched our annual membership drive, and I'm hoping I can count on you for your support.

And we're doing several things differently regarding memberships starting this fall. In the past, we required DP alumni to pay annual "dues" to receive all the benefits of membership -- particularly access to the DP Alumni Directory, which we moved online last year. The DPAA Board of Directors has decided that all DP alumni, whether they donate or not, will now have full access to the entire DPAA website, including the Alumni Directory. All you have to do is log into this website. (Instructions for doing so are on the site.) And all DP alumni will receive an Annual Report in the mail before the end of each year.

In eliminating the pay-for-services dues model, we are now simply calling on all DP alumni to make an annual membership contribution to support the DPAA and The Daily Pennsylvanian. While our basic membership remains $35 per year, I encourage you to make the most generous gift that you can. You can click here to make your contribution now, or read on and let me highlight how DPAA membership donations will be allocated:

DP debuts new mobile app

The DP launched its newest product, a mobile app for Apple and Android phones, at the end of September. A version optimized for the iPad will follow before the end of October. More than 1,700 people have downloaded the app in its first two months.

The decision to move into the mobile space was an easy one for the DP -- almost every student now sports a smartphone and checks it many times throughout the day -- but finding the right mix of features for the DP App posed a challenge.

The simply-named "DP App" pulls together content from across all the DP's publications: the flagship daily newspaper, 34th Street Magazine, the popular campus life blog Under The Button, The Buzz sports blog, and The Red and the Blue politics blog. Editorial content on the app updates in real-time, so when new content is posted to a blog or a new news story hits the DP website, it shows up in the app at the same time. A key feature of the app is its "offers" section, where local businesses advertise short-lived discounts and specials which change throughout the day. Taking advantage of the mobile medium, these "DP Deals" are location-sensitive, showing users the deals closest to their current location.

DP General Manager Eric Jacobs recently talked about the DP's decision to launch a mobile app and some of the strategies behind a major new platform for the organization.

"We actually had an earlier iPhone app back in 2010. It was a very simple news reader, created for just a few bucks, but we never promoted it much and it never gained a large number of users," Jacobs said. "In late 2010 and throughout spring and summer 2011, our strategy instead focused on developing a major revamp of our main website, theDP.com. One of the key technology changes brought in when the site debuted last fall was that it was mobile-optimized -- meaning that it detected when readers were using phone or tablet, and automatically presented them with a simplified layout designed for easy reading on the small screens of those devices."

"For just presenting DP editorial content, the website did a good job, and everything that our first-generation mobile app did -- but better," Jacobs said. "Everyone at the DP agreed we didn't need a mobile app, and we wouldn't do a new mobile app, until we could bring more functionality to users, and until we figured out a better way to generate money from a new platform."

Annual Marquez conference brings together DP alumni, current staff

The 27th edition of the DPAA’s Stephen A. Marquez Journalism Conference brought together alumni from four decades on a late-September Sunday afternoon to educate and inspire the next generation of DP journalists.

More than 100 students engaged with alumni on a variety of traditional topics, ranging from reporting and editing to design and photography. This year’s conference also looked to the ever-changing future of media, focusing on the latest platforms for sharing journalism and engaging readers. A standing-room-only crowd gathered for the keynote session entitled "The News 2012: the tools and technology of journalism today."

New printer for the DP

After nine-and-a-half years of being printed by The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, the DP is being printed at a new printing facility this fall.

The DP's Board of Directors made the decision this summer to award the paper's printing business to Delaware Printing Company in Dover, DE. The decision, notes DP General Manager Eric Jacobs, was largely financially motivated, with some improvement on the print quality as well.

"As alumni who have been following our reports on the DP's financial difficulties over the past several years are already aware, we continue to face an acute need to reduce our costs wherever possible without decimating the fabric of the DP operation," Jacobs said. "Delaware Printing offered us an opportunity to slice more than $30,000 per year from our operating costs, and that proved too enticing an offer to pass up."

Jacobs said that the added distance between the PD and the Dover printing plant -- a 90-minute drive -- initially seemed too great to be feasible. But through several months of discussions, it became apparent that with only a small shift in the DP's internal deadline, the printer could fit in the print job and continue to get the paper to campus by 6 a.m. The DP editors now need to complete their pages by 1:30 a.m., a half hour earlier than the previous 2 a.m. press deadline.

The new printer uses a slightly thicker weight of newsprint, and a different method of screening photos, which results in a product DP staff members are finding to be an upgrade in quality. The only physical difference in the paper is that it is now one inch shorter, with an image area of 20" tall after more than four decades at 21" tall. "The DP, along with all newspapers, have gotten narrower over the past decade," Jacobs said, "but losing an inch in height now is virtually unnoticeable unless you lay it side-by-side with an older paper."

The change took a lot of work behind the scenes in the months leading up to the start of the fall semester, but most readers will likely be unaware that the DP has changed, Jacobs said, "unless they notice the subtly nicer feel of the paper and the sharper look of our photos and color ads." 

"It's a huge win for the DP to be able to achieve such a large cost savings with no adverse impact on either our readers or our staff," Jacobs said. "We've made many painful cuts in reducing the DP's budget by more than a third over the past three years, but this offered a great gain with no pain -- aside from the work to bring about the transition."

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Alumni Briefs: new beginnings

July was a month of new beginnings for a number of DP alumni...

Marisa Katz Bellack '99, and her husband of nearly two years, Adam Bellack, welcomed their first child, Audrey Claire. Mom is The Washington Post’s Opinions Editor for Digital. She is a former DP Editorial Page Editor. Before joining The Washington Post in 2007, she wrote for The New Republic, National Journal, the Providence Journal, Newsday, Newsweek and USA Today.

Tali Yahalom '09 became engaged to Josh Leinwand. She is an Assistant Editor at Money Magazine. Yahalom was a News Editor at the DP.

Anthony Campisi '09 began a new job at the Bergen Record, covering the New Jersey statehouse. It's his third newspaper in less than a year, after leaving the Philadelphia Inquirer and a short stint at the Trentonian. Campisi was a Copy Editor and reporter at the DP. 

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Gabriele Marcotti joins ESPN

Gabriele Marcotti '95, has spent the past decade building his reputation as an expert international soccer journalist. This month, he added ESPN to his resume of employers.

ESPN announced that Marcotti signed a multi-year deal to create content across multiple ESPN media as a writer and analyst. He will appear regularly on "Press Pass," the network's nightly soccer disscussion show, as well as write for ESPNFC, the upcoming multi-language, multi-country soccer brand under which ESPN will house all of its soccer properties in the near future.

"I've thoroughly enjoyed watching, consuming -- and, periodically, contributing to -- ESPN's soccer coverage around the world," Marcotti says. "ESPN brings a uniquely global and distinctive offering to soccer fans, and one which I'm looking forward to working on."

The Italian-born Marcotti, who now lives in London, is a former DP reporter and Editorial Page Editor. 

Garrett Young in Africa: leading a fight for better health

Of all the Daily Pennsylvanian alumni scattered across the world, Garrett Young '06 has a singular distinction.

He's one of the few veterans of 4015 Walnut Street living in Africa, and the only one in Swaziland, where he leads a five-member team from the Clinton Health Access Initiative working to improve the health and lives of people in the tiny, land-locked kingdom.

It's a life Young never envisioned when he was a senior at Penn and had "not a clue" about what he would do after graduation. 

Young, 28, grew up in Concord, N.H., majored in History at Penn and served on two DP boards -- as City Editor in 2004 and Managing Editor in 2005.

"I considered journalism, but had a sense (rightly or wrongly), that the only way to pursue it was in a small town somewhere," Young said in a Gchat from Swaziland. "I knew nothing formal about business at all, and so I thought that doing something in the business world would be useful."

"I had a sense I wanted to be DC, but I didn't want it to be political," he added. "I thought that a management consulting-type job would give me the skills to approach problems in a useful way that was different from the way that I had otherwise learned to think."

Young landed a position in Washington with the Corporate Executive Board, a consulting firm. He found his work there interesting and challenging -- and a true learning experience -- but after four years, he yearned for something different.

"I got to the point where I realized I didn't feel like spending all my time helping large companies, but I enjoyed problem-solving and the logic required for that kind of work," he says.