About Melissa Umbarger

UMBARGER, MELISSA is a designer and copy editor at the News & Record, a 90,000-circulation newspaper that covers the Triad in North Carolina. Her responsibilities include designing the Sunday and daily fronts, blogging, leading the copy desk training team and, increasingly, working on finding the copy desk's role in the multimedia world. Umbarger grew up in Daytona Beach, FL, and graduated with a degree in mass communication and a minor in Spanish at Winthrop University. Her first "real" job was at the Daily Press in Newport News, VA, where she worked as a sports, features and news designer for two years before taking a job on the News & Record copy desk in Greensboro, NC, four years ago. She also has done occasional freelance editing and writing for magazines. Umbarger enjoys reading, geocaching, video games and baking for her newsroom cohorts. She also loves living three hours from the mountains and three hours from the beach.