Tough Crowd   

John Hubbell says he faced "a high degree of skepticism" when he showed up for his new job as managing editor of Mississippi's Columbus Commercial Dispatch .

Maybe it was his California license plates. Or maybe it was the fact that, at 24, Hubbell is possibly the youngest managing editor of a daily newspaper in the country.

During his first week, he says, someone threatened him "in front of God and everyone in the newsroom." Fortunately for Hubbell, his antagonist – who had decided she didn't like him before he even stepped in the door – was promptly fired.

In spite of such newsroom melodrama, Hubbell is quick to sing the praises of his new home in the South, including the hearty food and friendly people and the fact that Mississippi is the home of the Delta blues.

Luck played a role in Hubbell's rapid ascension. While interning at the Los Angeles Times in the spring of 1995 he rented a room from a friend of Commercial Dispatch Executive Editor Birney Imes III . Imes later approached Hubbell about an editing position when he was reporting for the Memphis Commercial Appeal and writing a book about baseball's "Marvelous Marv" Throneberry.

Says Imes of his new hire, "He brought energy and imagination that we needed to enliven this newspaper."

While Hubbell has his eye on the big leagues, he says the 15,000-circulation Commercial Dispatch is teaching him to appreciate community journalism. "It's fun to be at this level so you can really change things," he says. "The other day I was at the post office and the guy at the counter knew who I was. I never really felt all that relevant before."