Who Will Take Over the Star?

It's confirmed: Valley Morning Star editor George Cox is leaving the newspaper for South Padre Island (see my earlier post).

Once he crosses the causeway, Cox will take over as general manager for two publications that Freedom Communications, the VMS's parent company, owns:

• The Island Breeze, a five-day-a-week tabloid produced by the Star.
• The Coastal Current, a free arts and entertainment weekly that Freedom just purchased.

Freedom plans to combine operations of the two papers, with George at the helm.

Meanwhile, there's still speculation as to who will replace him at the Harlingen daily. Although some people favor former Brownsville Herald metro editor Melissa Zamora, there's also speculation (that sounds so much better than rumor) that ex-Herald boss Teclo Garcia might be in the running.

Teclo used to work at The Monitor and was spokesman for the city of McAllen before landing the Brownsville gig. Last I heard, he was editing ¡Extra!, a special section in the Arizona Republic geared toward English-speaking Hispanic readers.

My thanks to my former coworkers who helped get me up to speed on this issue.