Three South Georgia editors placed at the top of their circulation divisions in the General Excellence category in the Georgia Press Association awards presented June 9. From left are Kevin C. Hall, editor of The Moultrie Observer; Jim Zachary, editor of The Valdosta Daily Times; and Dean Poling, who was both managing editor of the VDT and editor of The Tifton Gazette. Poling was later promoted to editor of the VDT and retired Sept. 1. Hall joined the VDT in that role Sept. 5.

VALDOSTA — A former Valdosta Daily Times employee has returned to the newspaper as editor.

Kevin C. Hall, who will continue as editor of The Moultrie Observer as well, started in his new role Sept. 5.

A native of Albany, Hall graduated from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism in 1990 and within months was a reporter for the Americus Times-Recorder. In 1994 he came to the VDT as a paginator, designing news pages under the overall direction of Editor Jerry Guy.

“Greg McIlvain was my supervisor at the start,” Hall recalled. “The department was Greg and Terry Richards, who’s now the senior reporter here, and me. The internet had just become popular, and Greg was placed in charge of the newspaper’s online products not long after I got here and Dee McClelland was hired to run our department.”

Dean Poling, who retired as VDT editor Sept. 1, was the crime reporter then, Hall said.

After only a year in Valdosta, Hall became city editor at The Tifton Gazette. The following September, he married Cherry Chambers, a Hahira woman who built ads for the VDT.

“It’s kind of funny,” Hall said. “Cherry and her uncle worked in the Composing Department, one of her brothers and a cousin worked on the press crew, and her sister was the classified clerk for a little while. It was as if working at the newspaper was their family tradition.”

After Tifton, Hall was involved in trying to start a VDT bureau in Nashville, but when that didn’t work out he became news editor at The Moultrie Observer. In 2000 he returned to Valdosta as part of a central design desk that laid out newspaper pages for The Observer, The Daily Times, the Tifton Gazette and the Thomasville Times-Enterprise.

All the newspapers Hall worked for — Americus, Valdosta, Tifton and Moultrie — as well as Thomasville and Cordele, were owned by Thomson Newspapers. In late 2000 they were all purchased by CNHI, which decided to do away with the central desk and make some other personnel changes that opened up the position of newsroom manager in Moultrie. Hall started there in February 2001 and remained in that position until he was named editor in 2018.

In June of this year, The Observer brought home a first-place award in General Excellence from the Georgia Press Association for work completed in 2022.

“As far as we’ve been able to tell, it’s the first time The Observer had received the top award,” Hall said, “although we had gotten third place at least three times before then. I was really proud of that small staff — and still am.”

Meanwhile, Poling, who was managing editor of the VDT and editor of The Tifton Gazette in 2022, was standing nearby with two first-place General Excellence awards, one for each of the categories his newspapers participated in.

“Valdosta has such a history of success at the GPA awards. It sets the bar for everyone in the group,” Hall said. “I expect to continue that tradition of outstanding journalism.”

Also this year, Hall was named the top designer among small newspapers in CNHI, and in the two preceding years, The Observer’s Moultrie Scene magazine was named the top magazine in the company in its circulation category.

Hall’s duties now include The Valdosta Daily Times newspaper, The Moultrie Observer newspaper, Moultrie Scene magazine and Ag Scene, an agricultural tabloid that’s shared by the Times, the Observer, the Gazette and the Times-Enterprise.

Jill Holloway, editor of the Times-Enterprise, has taken on Valdosta Scene magazine, The Tifton Gazette newspaper and Tifton Scene magazine in addition to her duties with the Times-Enterprise and Thomasville Scene magazine.

Hall lives in Moultrie with his wife and two adult children, David and Samantha.