Overend Is Named Ventura County Editor

Bill Overend, city editor of the Ventura County Edition of The Times since 1992, has been named editor of the edition.

The Times also announced the appointment of Doug Adrianson, an assistant editor in Life & Style, as the editor of the Ventura County Edition’s new editorial page, which will begin publication on Sundays this summer.

Overend replaces Julia C. Wilson, who was recently named president of the Valley and Ventura County editions and a vice president of The Times.

“Bill Overend is the quintessential journalist, one with excellent reporting and writing skills as well as keen editing capabilities,” said Times Editor Shelby Coffey III. “He has strong ties with the community and is committed to producing the best newspaper in Ventura County.”

Narda Zacchino, Times associate editor, said Overend’s experience as an editor is invaluable in the highly competitive Ventura County market. “He’s a highly respected leader with immense enthusiasm for this work,” she said.

Zacchino called the addition of an editorial page a major improvement for the Ventura County Edition.

“A newspaper is not complete without its editorial page, and with the appointment of Doug Adrianson, the Ventura County Edition will have a place where residents and community leaders can voice their opinions about issues important to the county,” she said. “In addition, we will have local editorials and take positions on those issues.”

A native of Chicago, Overend graduated from Arizona State University. He worked as a feature writer for the Arizona Republic and the International Herald Tribune in Paris, then as a writer, editor and producer for CBS News for seven years.

Overend, 54, joined The Times in 1976 as a feature writer in the View section, and later covered law enforcement and federal courts in Los Angeles.

When the Ventura County Edition became a daily publication in March 1990, Overend was named assistant city editor. He was promoted to city editor in 1992.

Overend has been honored for his writing on issues such as drug law enforcement, the lives of homeless people and problems with court systems. He was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in feature writing by The Times in 1984.

A resident of Ventura since 1989, Overend has two sons, William, 28, an attorney, and Paul, 11, a student at Balboa Middle School in Ventura.

Adrianson, 43, who grew up in Florida, graduated from Northwestern University in 1976 and has been a journalist ever since.

Adrianson joined The Times in 1993 as an editor in the View section and became an assistant editor later that year.

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Before joining The Times, he spent a year traveling in Latin America. Previously, he worked 12 years at the Miami Herald, where he held a variety of positions, including arts editor, city desk editor and Miami Beach bureau chief. In the latter capacity, he wrote editorials and participated in candidate endorsements.

An Ojai resident for two years, Adrianson is married to photographer-writer Hope Frazier.