About Phil Lucas

Phil Lucas, executive editor of The News Herald in Panama City, Fla., brings a lot more than newspaper experience to his columns. He examines political, economic and social issues from the viewpoint of someone who has actually been there, because he often has.

Born in 1952, in Bessemer, Ala., Lucas grew up in Birmingham. He saw up close the reactions of whites and blacks to the civil rights strife of the 1960s, including violent episodes in his hometown and state -- the church bombing, the fire hoses and attack dogs, and the Selma march. When he got the chance, he left Alabama and moved to Florida.

Lucas majored in English at the University of South Florida in Tampa and began his journalism career in sports at the St. Petersburg Times in Florida. He worked as a desk editor and a reporter and covered, in one of his first assignments, the annual St. Pete to Isla Mujares, Mexico sailboat race in which half the fleet was crippled in a gulf storm. Lucas crewed on the boat that finished second and wrote a first-person account of the race for a three-day series on the sports front page.

He worked as assistant regional editor and national desk copy chief at The Orlando Sentinel, then as managing editor in Albany, Ga., at The Albany Herald. Lucas served as editor and publisher of the daily paper in the college town of Auburn, Ala., observing up close the politics of academia and Southeastern Conference (SEC) sports, which is serious business.

As editor of the Rome News-Tribune in Rome, Ga., he spearheaded a project on PCB contamination from a closed General Electric plant that took the top honor in investigative reporting from the Georgia Press Association. The stories led to a settlement with local government amounting to more than $20 million at last count.

He became executive editor of the paper in Panama City in 2002.

Lucas has had other occupations -- before, during and between newspaper gigs. He worked his way through college as a dishwasher, waiter and paperboy. He was a land surveyor for four years, having learned it from his father, who instilled in him a passion for accuracy in measurements, which carried over into a drive for accuracy in word usage. He also was a real estate broker and mortgage broker, as well as a restaurant owner and citrus fruit buyer.