GLASGOW — Three Glasgow natives are settling into new roles within the Glasgow Daily Times.

Martha Thomas will be shifting from her current position as ad designer to news clerk, Lisa Simpson Strange has transitioned this week from reporter to news editor and Cindy Green has been the new business manager since the beginning of December.

Thomas and Strange have long histories at the newspaper already, with Thomas holding the distinction of being the longest-tenured Glasgow Daily Times employee.

“I was just out of high school, it was my second job,” said Thomas, who graduated from Temple Hill High School in 1972 and began her work at the Daily Times in 1973.

When Thomas started at the newspaper, she worked in the commercial printing department, where she used a hot glue gun to paste strips of news copy onto pages to create the newspaper. There weren't any electronics back then, she said.

“Lord, things have changed a lot since I started,” Thomas said.

Over the decades, Thomas has worked in commercial printing, the advertising department, was a production manager, did display ads and finally moved to classified ads where she has been an ad designer. They used to do everything without computers, including cutting out photos and putting a border on them by hand, Thomas said. A lot of things have changed in the news industry and a lot of coworkers, even owners of the newspaper, have come and gone during her time, but Thomas has remained happy in her work throughout it all.

“I probably couldn't have chosen a better job that I have liked so well,” Thomas said. “I guess that's why I've been here so long.”

As soon as some equipment is moved and computer programs installed, Thomas will be transferring to the news room to become news clerk. She will be the liaison between the public and the editorial staff, answering phone calls and e-mails, collecting submitted news content and handling obituaries.

Also in the newsroom, Strange is settling into her role as the news editor. After three years as a reporter, and more than a decade at the Glasgow Daily Times, Strange became news editor on Feb. 1. Strange began working at the newspaper in 1999.

“I started here as a temporary employee who was only supposed to be here a few weeks,” said Strange, who was also born and raised in Glasgow.

Strange had been in the retail book business for 16 years, despite have an academic background in biology, before she came to the Daily Times. She worked her way through the management chain at Waldenbooks/Borders, reaching the position of district manager.

After her time as GDT news clerk, Strange worked as online editor, copy editor, special projects editor, spent a year as an interim publisher at the Grayson County News-Gazette, and finally worked as a reporter.

“I've had just about every position on the news side,” Strange said.

After all her management experience, it was the experience as a reporter that was the missing piece before she felt prepared to become news editor, according to Strange.

“It actually turned out to be kind of serendipitous that I got to be a reporter for more than three years so I can now better relate to the reporters in my care, so to speak,” Strange said.

Strange covered courts, crime, government, health, business and education, as well as various other stories that came her way. While becoming news editor means slipping into the position to which she answered until recently, Strange said that donning another editorial hat is easy for her. Her training, communication and people-management skills will help her along the way, she said.

“I look forward to working with the reporters and helping them become better at what they do and interacting with the community in a new way,” Strange said.

She will be taking the positives she learned from the previous news editor, Strange said, and coupling it with her skills gathered from previous experience. Her day-to-day duties will involve overseeing the reporters, designing and laying out the pages of the newspaper and collecting information from different news sources.

“My focus is good communication at all times, training people on how to do their jobs better and giving them the tools they need,” Strange said.

Working with Thomas will be helpful in reorganizing the newsroom and managing news information, Strange said.

“I think being able to bring Martha Thomas into the newsroom at the news clerk position is also a really good thing,” she said.

Strange's shift will have her in the newspaper office from 2 to 11 p.m., but she said she hopes to be “out in the community more in the morning and at lunch time just to talk to people.”

Cindy Green is the newest addition to the Daily Times staff. She came to the newspaper from South Central Bank late last year to become the business manager, who oversees personnel, payroll, payables and receivables, accounting, “everything, nothing,” as she put it. Like the other women, Green grew up in Glasgow, graduating from Glasgow High School before going away to college. After meeting her husband at David Lipscomb University, they decided to move back to Glasgow to raise a family.

Green has used her degree in management and finance to work in many banks in Glasgow, starting with New Farmers National Bank and being transferred or moving to Area Bank, BB&T, Kentucky Banking Center, Citizens First and finally South Central. When she read the advertisement for the business manager position in the Daily Times newspaper, Green said she had been in banking for 20 years and was ready for a change.

“I just decided I wanted to try a different business direction other than banking, so when this job opportunity came along I decided I'd try it out and see,” Green said.

Number crunching has great appeal to Green, she said, and that part of her new position is similar to her banking career. The rest is a lot of learning, which she considers a good thing.

“I've enjoyed all the people I work with very much and I'm enjoying what I'm doing, just learning new things ... It's inspired me to keep on learning,” Green said.

Being able to find this type of new job opportunity in Glasgow was exciting, according to Green. She didn't want to uproot her family while looking for a new career move. Working within a newspaper has been an eye-opener into the world of news.

“I do have a profound respect for the people I work with as far as the editorial staff and the advertising staff, of what they have to do to get the paper together and get it out, get the news out to the people of Glasgow,” Green said. “The information we get out is important to the community.”

Before working at the newspaper, Green didn't know simple things, such as not all information in the newspaper is available online, Green said. She wants to be an ambassador to the community, and show how positive the newspaper is.

“I'd like to get more people reading the newspaper every day, subscribing to the paper because we have good articles and good advertising and good information and good pictures,” Green said.