Blogger Bios

Chuck Cox | is sports editor of People Newspapers. He has been with the company since June 2007 and was originally a reporter for Oak Cliff People. He grew up all over God’s creation because his dad was in the military and his mom also had a job that required her to move regularly. He attended 12 different schools, including four different high schools before finishing up at Spring Hill in Longview. He attended both Kilgore College and Stephen F. Austin State University, serving on both the yearbook and newspapers staffs all four years. He is a huge fan of The Ticket and spends most of the time he isn’t working at concerts and sporting events. He is married with no kids and one dog.

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Charles N. Geilich | is a community blogger for the paper, a position for which he is eminently qualified as being a blogger who lives in the community. Charles is married with two stepchildren and one child of his DNA. After brief stints in insurance and reporting, Charles became a lawyer, and all that remains to complete his resume of most-hated professions is car salesman (but he did briefly sell storm windows in Austin, not an easy feat). Life’s been good to Charles, for reasons he neither questions nor understands, and when he isn’t mediating family law cases for a living, he mediates family law disputes at home for free. He has written two novels but has kept his day job, and he hates piña coladas and walks in the rain. Charles is funny looking.

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Dan Koller | is managing editor of People Newspapers. His previous employer was The Dallas Morning News. His first employer was Baskin-Robbins, for whom he scooped ice cream at the corner of Mockingbird and Abrams. Dan is a graduate of the Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts as well as Allegheny College. He is a native of a Philadelphia, so his blood runs Eagles green.

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Georgia Fisher | is People Newspapers’ society editor. A relative newbie to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, she was raised in quirky South Austin — close to live music, in a house with a carpeted kitchen and an Astroturf-coated front porch. It’s true. As for journalism, Georgia fell wholly in love with her student newspaper while earning a B.A. in English from Texas State University (2007). Her background also includes an editorial assistantship for the Austin American-Statesman and work as a general-assignments and education reporter for the New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung. Georgia loves people, animals, travel and art; recent activities include obsessive yet uneducated attempts to “feng shui” her house. She’s thrilled with her new position at People Newspapers, and eager to meet the residents of Park Cities and Preston Hollow.

Jason Heid | is editor and publisher of People Newspapers. Originally hails from the Land of Lincoln, though he did most his growing up in Denton. His college years were spent at Trinity University in San Antonio. He’s in his second tour of duty with People, having previously served as managing editor during the company’s expansion from two to eight newspapers. His other work includes time at The Dallas Morning News, and another (far less prestigious) chain of community newspapers in the Dallas area. An old-school newspaperman, he doesn’t care much for joke bios.

Josh Hixson | is People Newspapers’ web editor. Born in New Orleans, raised in St. Louis and high schooled in Southlake, he’s the product of a corporate rolling stone. After graduating from Texas A&M University in 2006 with a B.A. in communication, he got his first taste of North Texas community journalism with a chain of papers better left unnamed before heading to the greener pastures of People as a staff writer for Preston Hollow People. He’s written about Pete Sessions’ love for online poker and Preston Hollow’s pit bull problem. His interests include football (the Aggies and the Cowboys), reading sci-fi, “sticking it to the man,” and anything that makes his beautiful wife happy.

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Krista Nightengale | started as associate editor at People Newspapers in June 2007 and took on the role as assistant managing editor in August 2008. After surviving an arduous farming childhood of plowing fields, bailing hay, and potbellied pig pets, Krista attended the University of Oklahoma where she dabbled in every form of student media, interned at various media outlets, and discovered the joy that is Halo. She graduated in 2007 with a BA in journalism. Krista then decided to see what was beyond the rolling plains of Native America, and she packed up her two samurai swords and headed to Dallas where she now resides with her husband, and their two kids — Reece, the cat, and Miko, their dog.

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Merritt Patterson | is a lifelong Dallas girl. She was ripped from the Plano school system during the “suicide era” by her therapist parents. She wound up in a plaid skirt, sheltered from the world at First Baptist Academy and then learned the whole world isn’t Baptist while at Texas Tech University. She majored in Chi Omega sorority events and by some miracle graduated in 1991. She went from going out at 10:00 p.m. with girlfriends to being married with four kids living in the Park Cities. Merritt is a freelance writer with a weekly column in Park Cities People, Bulletin from the Bubble.