Penelope Huston-Baer is leaving her position as director of new media for the Santa Barbara Independent to move back to her hometown, Memphis, but she is excited that Robby Robbins (pictured) is pulling up his Southern roots to take her place. She has been at the Independent for seven years, and in the alt-weekly industry for 16; Robbins is leaving the Independent Weekly in Durham after 12 years.
Clare Nisbet sold over $16,000 of new business to run away with the AAN CAN "Back To School" sales contest that ended on Friday. As a result, both Clare and her classified manager, Penelope Huston Baer, will receive an Apple Prize Package consisting an Apple G4 iBook, a U2 Special Edition iPod, and 200 free downloads from iTunes.
Alan Baer's "love for the obscure and the nontraditional led him to the alternative news weekly," Omaha Reader writes of its eccentric owner, who died of cancer Nov. 5. The paper remembers Baer as "the philanthropist and the gentle man with a quirky sense of humor, who never lost faith in those around him and in the city he loved."
