LUMBERTON — Sarah Willets has been named managing editor of The Robesonian
Willets joined The Robesonian staff in October 2013 as a staff writer. She covers breaking news, crime and local government and writes an occasional column on vegetarian cooking. She lives in Lumberton.
“Sarah is so deserving of this,” said Donnie Douglas, editor of The Robesonian. “I have hired a lot of folks in 30 years running a department in a newsroom or a newsroom itself, and she is among a handful of the best. She not only gets the job done, she does it with a smile.”
Willets moved to Chapel Hill at the age of 10 and attended Chapel Hill and Carrboro high schools. She attended New York University, where she double-majored in journalism and a combination of Spanish and linguistics. She completed her studies in three and a half years and graduated with honors in December 2012.
Willets previously interned in New York City with the New York Daily News and The Village Voice and worked for the AOL Huffington Post Media Group on the AOL Homepage.
She won first place in the category of General News Reporting by the North Carolina Press Association for her coverage for The Robesonian of Henry McCollum and Leon Brown, half-brothers who were freed from prison in September after serving 30 years for the 1983 rape and murder of a Red Springs girl.
“I’m very excited about my new role at The Robesonian and look forward to having a hand in upcoming initiatives to make our paper even better,” Willets said.