John Fredericks

Publisher

John Fredericks, a Roswell, GA resident for 20 years, is the founder and Chairman of Beacon Media Companies, Publisher of The Beacon and Beaconcast.com.

A 1980 graduate of Fairleigh-Dickinson University, where he majored in economics and political science, Fredericks has been a senior media publishing executive for more than 25 years and has served some of the largest newspaper companies in the United States.

As Chairman of Beacon Media Companies, the complete news and information source of North Fulton County, Fredericks is dually committed to serving both readers and advertisers in an enlightened way.

"As a paid subscription based publication invited into your home, we respect our community, our families and our readers. We strive to behave with honor, valor and distinction as we continue to earn your trust and your time. Our goal is to provide you with hyper local coverage of pertinent news and events that effect your life. Our content is deep, rich, relevant and insightful. We analyze news where appropriate and pursue investigative reporting where warranted. We are not a 'shopper.' We are fiercely independent. We don't play 'footsie' with local governments nor do we sugar coat the truth.

We are dedicated to fair and balanced reporting. Editorially, we often take an unabashed politically conservative view point. Most important, we keep our opinions where they belong- on the opinion pages. We have an indisputable reputation of asking the hard questions and tackling the toughest issues that no one else chooses to cover. We work to serve every reader with valuable and lively content that provides a return on their investment of time with The Beacon, whether it be in print, online, or broadcast. Our core promise to our readers is simply this: we will never sell out. Not to special interests, not to business, not to the developers, not to politicians and not to political agendas."

"In regards to our advertising community, we believe the market is changing at a rapid pace, and media leadership must gain alignment," says Fredericks. "We advocate and embrace a dramatic new selling proposition for our valued advertisers. Our distinguishing characteristic is that we guarantee a return on investment on each sales solution that we bring to our customers. We challenge traditional internally-focused and myopic advertising sales venues to provide all advertisers with a guaranteed ROI and an explicit expectation of performance and results as we seek to drive a paradigm shift from product-and-presentation focus to customer-centered pertinence and solution relevance."

John can be reached via email at jfredericks@beaconcast.com

Tim Altork

Reporter

Tim Altork got started in the newspaper business as a sportswriter covering high school sports in Roanoke, Alabama, for the Randolph Leader. He also was a sports columnist for Atlanta's Sunday Paper before coming to the Beacon. He was born and raised in Albany, Georgia, and played baseball at Darton College for two years before earning a BA in political science from Valdosta State University in 1999. Tim lives in Woodstock with his wife Heather and three young children. Tim can be reached via email at taltork@beaconcast.com

Jeff Bean

Reporter

His primary journalistic influence is Dianna Gordon of the Elbert County News ("Every story has fourteen sides"; "If your mother says she loves you -- check it out anyway"). 

D. Jefferson Bean was born in La Plata, Maryland, on September 22, 1967. A Department of Defense "brat," he has lived in five states; and spent six years in Europe before graduating from Roswell High School in 1985 and majoring in English at Georgia State University. He speaks several English dialects, rusty German, and can order a beer or a shot of rak? in Turkish.

His interests include language, literature, history, philosophy, religion, anthropology, psychology, martial arts/self-defense, shooting (but alas! he lives in Roswell...), music, cooking, gardening, and animals -- especially catfish.

His literary influences include Joseph Conrad, Samuel L. Clemens, Ambrose Bierce, G.K. Chesterton, Sinclair Lewis, H.L. Mencken, Hunter S. Thompson, William Faulkner, P.J. O'Rourke, Marc MacYoung, Barry Eisler, Andrew Vachss, Lewis Grizzard, Bert Vincent, Samuel Adams, John Kennedy Toole, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ayn Rand, and James Joyce.

A Roswellian since 1976, Bean is a freelance writer/researcher/photographer and blogger. He is working on his first novel. And he is married to Maggie West.

John Breech

Sports Editor

John Breech has spent the last two years of his life trying to come up with synonyms for the word "disappointing" as he wrote weekly about the Cincinnati Bengals on Growlzone.com. He began his college career in the fall of 2000 as a football player at Hanover College (Ind.). He finally finished his higher education, an unexpected shock to family and friends, in Dec. 2005 with a B.A. in English Journalism from Miami of Ohio. While at Miami, John was a student assistant for a football team that made consecutive bowl trips for the first time in 30 years. He also co-founded the university's favorite publication, Miami Quarterly (Mq). John now resides in the North Fulton area. John can be reached via email at jbreech@beaconcast.com

Helen Borland

Reporter

Helen lived in Conyers for 19 years then India for two years before becoming a permanent resident of Roswell three years ago. After graduating from Michigan State University with a BA in Elementary Education, she married and raised two children. Before it was time for her to enter the job market she honed her academic credentials and earned a Master's Degree as a Reading Specialist from Georgia State University.

Last year she decided 20 years in a classroom was enough and started looking for other opportunities. In addition to writing for the Roswell Beacon, she edits grammar books.

Maggie Lee

Reporter

Politics and government reporter Maggie Lee narrowly dodged a career in academia after a BS in International Relations at Georgia Tech and an MA in Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore.  She came home to Atlanta, and got into journalism via a fact-checking job at the Southern Center for International Studies.  From there, it she moved to sports business reporting, then freelancing, and was serendipitously sent one year to the state capitol, where she found her inner politics nerd. Her work has appeared in several local publications, most regularly The Beacon.  Contact her at mlee@beaconcast.com.

Kent McCorkle

Photographer

Kent McCorkle spent most of his career in the corporate world.  After graduating from Western Carolina University with a degree in Psychology, he worked for a number of years in Human Resource Management and then as a Manufacturing Manager and Quality Management consultant.  Several years ago, he decided to turn his passion for photography into his occupation and now manages and operates his own event and sports photography business.  Most of what he knows about photography has been learned from other photographers who he has worked with while prowling the sidelines of countless sporting events.  Kent can be reached via e-mail at: foto@mindspring.com

Maggie West

Reporter

Margarita (Maggie) Talamantes West was born in Highland Park, Michigan, on September 18, 1957. After graduating from Troy High School in 1975, she attended Walsh College, where she earned degrees in Business and Marketing. After serving in an executive capacity for two North Carolina-based companies, she turned her hand to writing in 2003 and sold her first article to Latitude Magazine in 2005.

Her interests include gardening, writing, sewing, landscaping, music, politics, cars, and carpentry.

The mother of a grown son and daughter, Maggie witnessed the birth of her first grandchild in 2008. A  Roswell resident since 2007, she is married to D. Jefferson Bean. They have one "child" -- a spoiled dog named Connor.

At present, she is a freelance writer/photographer, and completing two projects: a thriller/romance novel, and a non-fiction piece on the dynamics of successful romantic relationships.