Don Stilwell has been in the newspapers business since the mid-1980s, when he became a reporter for the Times-Georgian in Carrollton.
A few years later he became a news editor with the Daily Citizen-News and then a reporter for the Rome News-Tribune.
In 1993, he became editor of the Walker County Messenger in LaFayette, and then publisher for the Messenger, as well as the Catoosa County News and Fort Oglethorpe Press in Ringgold.
Stilwell holds a bachelor of arts degree from Furman University in Greenville, S.C.
"I do what I do because I believe in the mission of newspapers," he said. "I know of few things more important than the right to express your opinion. That 'right' gives people their humanity. It gives them respect. It's an important reason for living. And that's what the newspaper business is all about. Newspapers are a forum, a dialogue among the people, all within an atmosphere of tolerance and acceptability, an atmosphere that says what you have to say is important."
Stilwell was born in 1955 and grew up in a Baptist children's home in Greenwood, S.C.