Houston deputy biz editor Crocker named editor of Beaumont paper

Ronnie Crocker

Ronnie Crocker, deputy business editor at the Houston Chronicle, has been named editor of the Beaumont Enterprise, another newspaper in Texas.

Both newspapers are owned by Hearst. Crocker’s last day at the Chronicle is Friday.

Crocker is author of the 2012 book “Houston Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in the Bayou City,” which drew on his Chronicle reporting about the city’s burgeoning local industry.

Born in Galveston and raised in Houston and Pearland, Crocker became the first person in his family to earn a college degree – a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from Texas A&M University. He also has an MBA from The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, but has spent his entire working life as a daily newspaper journalist.

Before joining the Chronicle as assistant state editor in 1994, he worked at the Bryan-College Station Eagle and the Daily Press of Newport News, Virginia, where his reporting on a troubled middle school earned first-place awards from the American Association of Sunday and Features Editors, the Virginia Press Association and Hampton Roads Black Media Professionals.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.