News has been part of Liz's life ever since she secured her first job as a "paper girl" delivering newspapers (rain or shine) on her bicycle.  She worked for CNN Radio for seven years as a producer and editor and now is your editor for Cumming Patch. She has more than 20 years of experience as a broadcast media professional and graduated from The Ohio State University with a Bachelor of Arts Degree.  Throughout her career she has interviewed and written on many issues involving newsmakers like Congressman Barney Frank, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Civil Rights Activist Jesse Jackson, Michigan State Governor Jennifer Granholm, Bono and The Edge of U2, Sting and Celine Dion to name a few.  She is excited to be reporting and writing about our community. Liz has been a resident of Forsyth County for more than 12 years and in Cumming since 2005.

Email rodney.thrash@patch.com

Hailing from Dallas, Texas, Rodney Thrash is a field editor for the Patch sites in Cobb, Douglas and Paulding counties.

Rodney is a 2002 graduate of the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, where he helped resurrect the Northwestern University Student Chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists as well as BlackBoard, the magazine for the university's African American community.

He has worked—as an intern or a full-time reporter—at The Dallas Examiner, The Daily Northwestern, the Chicago bureau of the New York Times, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Detroit Free Press.

Before moving to metro Atlanta in November 2010, he was a reporter for seven years at the St. Petersburg Times (now Tampa Bay Times), Florida’s largest daily newspaper.

His coverage of Florida's landmark hazing case involving a Florida A&M University fraternity pledge earned him first place honors from the Tampa Bay Association of Black Journalists in 2008.

Rodney sits on the board of directors of the Atlanta Association of Black Journalists, NABJ's 2012 Chapter of the Year. He co-chaired AABJ's 29th Pioneer Black Journalist Awards in 2011.

Brande Poulnot, an award-winning journalist and mother of two, is editor of Cartersville Patch. She is a University of Georgia graduate and former crime-beat reporter with The Daily Tribune News in Cartersville.

Prior to her journalism career, in which she earned several Georgia Press Association awards, and with her bachelor's of Business Administration, Brande served as an accountant with a regional financial services holding company.

When she's not chasing down news stories or writing, her children, 7-year-old MacKenze and 2-year-old Walker, keep her busy. MacKenze is a student in the Bartow County school system.

Do you want to learn about Patch advertising? Give me a call! Phone: 770-330-7172, E-mail: les.klimek@patch.com

Scott Bernarde is a long-time Atlanta-area journalist, with more than two decades of work with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Reporter Newspapers and the Marietta Daily Journal. He spent 22 years at the AJC as an editor and reporter, covering such topics as community news, and pro, college and high school sports. He was an award-winning outdoors writer with the AJC. A journalism major at Troy University, he has skiied with former President Jimmy Carter, spent too much time in sweaty locker rooms, and even wrote about whether fish feel pain (he still doesn't know).

Bill is the former Public Information Officer for Forsyth County Government, a veteran news reporter for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and a freelancer for Associated Press. He now owns his own political consulting firm  and is the proud grandfather of Alex, Caleb and Mason.  

Kristen has been writing since 2007. Her work has appeared in Mothering Magazine, Huffington Post, Mercedes-Benz News, Christian Science Monitor, Maui News and Political Derby. She is currently at work on her second fiction novel.

Phil Meyer is Professor Emeritus in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and was inducted into the North Carolina Hall of Fame in Journalism in the spring of 2008.  He joined the Journalism School in 1981 and served as Knight Chair in Journalism Professor from 1993-2008.  Prior to joining the school, he held a number of reporter and research positions at various media outlets. 

He has won numerous awards including the 2005 Sigma Delta Chi Distinguished Service Award for Research About Journalism (with Scott Maier). He was named a Fellow of Society of Professional Journalists in 2005. In 2004, the Newspaper Division of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication gave him its Professional Freedom and Responsibility Award. And in 2000 he received the American Association for Public Opinion Research Award for Exceptionally Distinguished Achievement.

Meyer is the author of several books including The Vanishing Newspaper:  Saving Journalism in the Information Age and Precision Journalism:  A Reporter’s Introduction to Social Science Methods.  Journalism Quarterly in 2000 listed this book as one of the 35 significant books of the 20th century in journalism and mass communication; and the American Association for Public Opinion Research, observing its 50th anniversary in 1996, listed it as one of 50 significant books on public opinion research.

He received his B.S. in technical journalism from Kansas State University and his M.A. in political science from the University of North Carolina.

Steven Berlin Johnson is a pioneer in the web world, as a co-founder of FEED, Plastic.com, and Outside.in, which was acquired by Patch in March of 2011. He also co-created Findings.com, which launched in late 2011. Steven was the 2009 Hearst New Media Professional-in-Residence at The Journalism School at Columbia University, and served for several years as a Distinguished Writer in Residence at NYU’s Journalism School. He is a bestselling author of seven books, and won acclaim and a Newhouse School Mirror Award for his 2010 Time Magazine cover story, "How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live." 

Speaking of Steven's editorial prowess, check out this video based on Steven's book, Where Good Ideas Come From, which was named one of the best books of 2010 by The Economist.

Brian was Editor-in-Chief of Time Out New York magazine before coming to Patch. Before that he worked for a variety of publications both online and off, including Details magazine, New York Magazine, and the old, dearly departed Sidewalk.com. He has written for numerous publications, from the New York Times magazine to Harper's Bazaar. He graduated from Bowdoin College and got an MFA in creative writing at Columbia University so he could put his novel in a drawer with distinction. He lives in Manhattan with his beautiful wife, adorable son, angelic daughter and the world's most dog-like cat. He’s proud as hell of what the Patch team has built.

Ken Paulson is president and chief executive officer of the First Amendment Center at Vanderbilt University and in Washington, D.C.

Previously, Paulson served as the editor and senior vice president/news of USA Today.  He is now a columnist on USA Today’s board of contributors, writing about First Amendment issues and the news media.

Throughout his career, Paulson has drawn on his background as both a journalist and lawyer, serving as the editor or managing editor of newspapers in five different states.

He also is past-president of the American Society of News Editors, the nation’s largest organization of news media leaders.

Paulson also was the host of the Emmy-honored television program “Speaking Freely,” seen in more than 60 PBS markets nationwide over five seasons, and the author of "Freedom Sings," a multimedia stage show celebrating the First Amendment that continues to tour the nation's campuses.  

He was an early advocate of making newspaper content available online, launching online newspapers in both Florida and New York in 1993.

For 12 years, Paulson was a regular guest lecturer at the American Press Institute, speaking to more than 5,000 journalists about First Amendment issues. He was honored with the API Lifetime Service Award. In 2010 and 2011, he served as chair of the PBS Editorial Standards Review Committee.

In 2007, Paulson was named fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, “the highest honor SPJ bestows upon a journalist for extraordinary contributions to the profession.” In 2008, he  received the Robert S. Abbott Memorial Award for Meritorious Service in Mass Communications from the Southern Regional Press Institute. He has also been elected to the Illini Publishing Hall of Fame at the University of Illinois.

He is a graduate of the University of Illinois College of Law and the University of Missouri School of Journalism. He also has served as an adjunct professor at Vanderbilt University Law School. In 2008, he received an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from American University.