Sarah Maki

ESCANABA — The Daily Press is officially under new leadership. Sarah Maki, who has served as an advertising professional with the paper for 14 years, has been selected to take the helm as the Daily Press’ newest publisher.

“It’s surreal right now,” said Maki of her new role with the paper.

Maki is a life-long Delta County resident, who is originally from the Rapid River area and now lives in Escanaba. She is a Rapid River Schools graduate, of the class of 1997, and has raised her four children in Delta County.

She first joined the Daily Press in 2009 as an inside sales representative and transitioned to outside sales in 2016. About four months ago, she was named the Daily Press’ advertising manager when former Advertising Manager Terrie Belongie retired. Her transition to publisher follows the retirement of Daily Press Publisher Corky DeRoeck, who left the Daily Press last Friday.

“I’m excited. For one, to have a have a publisher five days a week is probably going to make a difference in everyone’s lives,” said Maki.

Because DeRoeck was the publisher of the Daily Press, the Iron Mountain Daily News and the general manager of the newspapers’ print shop, Powers Printing, he was not able to be in Escanaba on a daily basis. Maki, who will be serving as both the publisher and the paper’s advertising director, will be available to Daily Press staff and the reading public daily.

Maki has a number of goals for the Daily Press, including making the paper more visible to the community. Besides partnering with other events, such as the upcoming Northern Lights Music Fest coming to the U.P. State Fairgrounds this summer, Maki hopes to grow and expand the events put on by the Press.

“The U.P. Ice Fishing and Hunting Expo is actually taking off like crazy,” said Maki of the Daily Press event that will return for its second year this Nov. 3-4.

She also hopes to continue to grow the paper’s business relationships and to foster a sense of camaraderie with advertisers.

“I’ve always been of the mentality that if your business doesn’t do good, my business doesn’t do good. So I’ve always enjoyed working with people; coming up with ideas,” she said.

That pro-business mentality is something she plans to make a fundamental part of the paper’s operations, particularly with regards to advertisers.

Maki encourages anyone with questions or comments about the paper to reach out to her at smaki@dailypress.net.