By Brett Dunlap, The Parkersburg News and Sentinel
PARKERSBURG, W.Va. — For more than 44 years, Jess Mancini has been a presence around the Mid-Ohio Valley and the offices of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel.
On Friday, Mancini called it a career as he officially retired and embarked on the next phase of his life.
“Forty-four years, that is a long time,” he said with a chuckle.
During his time with the paper, Mancini covered many aspects of local government and life, economic development and missed opportunities in Parkersburg, Marietta and the region, as well as talking with state and national leaders about how what they were doing was going to impact people locally.
A 1976 graduate of West Virginia University, Mancini came to Parkersburg in 1979 after doing some public relations and marketing work in Morgantown, as well as reporting for a small weekly newspaper there.
“Parkersburg, at that time, was big enough for me,” he said.
Back then, Parkersburg had two newspapers — The Parkersburg News and The Parkersburg Sentinel. Mancini originally sent in a resume to the News, which was the morning paper. He was contacted by the editor, Jim Young, to come in for an interview.
He showed up when the Sentinel staff was mostly in the office and no one knew why he was there, including Sentinel Editor Dave Owen. Mancini figured out the mistake and came back later in the day for the interview.
“My first day and I almost screwed that up,” he said with a laugh.
