Veronica Burns chosen to head board of directors

By Lloyd Garrison

Veronica Burns

Norfolk Now’s 15-person board of directors has voted unanimously to elevate Veronica Burns to president of the board. She replaces Lloyd Garrison, who co-founded the paper with Rosanna Trestman five years ago. Burns is no stranger to community service. Since retiring as a Time Inc. staffer in New York in 200l, Burns has been named to the boards of the Norfolk Land Trust and Norfolk Curling Club, where she is an active member of the club’s women’s team. She is also a volunteer reader in the Everybody Wins program at Hinsdale Elementary School in Winsted. Her move to Norfolk marked the end of a circuitous journey that began with her growing up in Ulster, in Northern Ireland, where she attended university. She worked as a secretary in London and as a publicist in Dublin, and came to the U.S. in 1978 as an “au pair” with a family in Manhattan. She brings to her new role as board president more than 20 years of experience as a professional journalist. In 1981, after a year of working in ad sales at Time and Fortune magazines, she moved up to Researcher and later joined Time’s News Bureau, becoming Chief of Reporters for People magazine’s Special Issues group. Her main interest as a writer and executive editor of Norfolk Now has been covering environmental news. “People tell me all the time how much they look forward to Norfolk Now,” she says, “even a friend who is a subscriber in Texas.” Burns sees her new position as a both a responsibility and a challenge. “I think the paper has found its niche,” she says. “I see my role as trying to keep it vibrant and meeting the expectations of its readers.”