Cohn named Highland Lakes Newspapers managing editor

Highland Lakes Publishing, LP publisher, Frank Shubert, announced this week that Lew K. Cohn would take the reigns as managing editor of the Marble Falls Highlander and the Burnet Bulletin.

Cohn, 45, is an award-winning former editor and publisher of several newspapers in Texas with more than 23 years experience in community journalism.

“We are incredibly fortunate to have Lew as the managing editor of our publications in the Highland Lakes,” said Shubert. “These communities, which we are privileged to serve, will benefit greatly from Lew’s comprehensive experience as a journalist and director of our editorial and digital products.”

From 1998 to 1999, Cohn was the managing editor of the Bandera Bulletin in Bandera County, where he previously worked with Shubert. An eight-time winner in the South Texas and Gulf Coast Press Associations, Cohn helped coordinate the newspaper's move to pagination and also earned National Newspaper Association honors.

“I am very happy to be in Burnet County and to be leading the newsroom for two great local newspapers,” Cohn said. “We have an exceptional staff of talented writers and photographers who have done a fantastic job of covering the county and I look forward to continuing a tradition of excellence that has existed at these newspapers for many years.”

Prior to coming to Highland Lakes Newspapers, Cohn most recently worked for Cigna Health Care in Denison and Plano, where he was involved in customer service and training for one of the nation's largest health care companies.

Cohn was publisher and editor of the Grand Saline Sun and Edgewood Enterprise newspapers in Van Zandt County from 2005 to 2007 before joining Cigna. Prior to that, he was the managing editor of the Bowie County Citizens Tribune from 1999 to 2005.

During his stint in New Boston with the Citizens Tribune, Cohn led the newspaper to the coveted Community Service award from the Texas Press Association in 2000. He also won the Alafair Hammett Media Award from the Association of Texas Professional Educators in 2001 for his coverage of some 10 area school districts. The Texas Retired Teachers' Association named him a School Bell Award winner for eight straight years from 2000 through 2007.

While at the Citizens Tribune, Cohn was also a three-time winner in the North & East Texas Press Association Better Newspaper Contest, including third place for Journalist of the Year in 2002.

Cohn worked in his hometown of Greenville, Mississippi, from 1996 to 1998 at the Delta Democrat Times, a historic newspaper whose founder, Hodding Carter Jr., won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing in the 1940s. Cohn continued the tradition of strong investigative and news journalism by winning six awards from the Mississippi Press Association, including first place for both News Story of the Year and Feature of the Year.

He honed his journalistic chops during his time as a beat reporter at the Tyler Morning Telegraph, a daily newspaper in Smith County, in the mid-1990s. While there, Cohn won acclaim for his trial reporting and his coverage of the infamous Kentucky Fried Chicken murder case, which was reopened by then-Texas Attorney General Dan Morales.

Cohn was the first reporter to break the news that the son of a former state senator had been indicted for the crime of capital murder in 1995 in connection with the deaths of five people abducted from a Kilgore KFC restaurant and he was also the first to break the story when DNA evidence taken from the suspect exonerated him and forced his release from jail.

He also previously worked in various capacities for the Henderson Daily News, the Hearne Democrat and the Atlanta Citizens Journal and Cass County Sun after his graduation from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism in 1992. A former Austin resident, Cohn is also a 1988 graduate of Anderson High School in Austin.

Cohn and his wife, Betty, a registered nurse, have seven grown children, including three boys and four girls (one deceased). The couple, who married in 2014, are avid rock concert-goers and enjoy singing karaoke.