Detroit Wheels   

Thom Fladung leaves the Akron Beacon Journal to return to the Detroit Free Press as managing editor.

Two years after leaving the Detroit Free Press to become managing editor of the Akron Beacon Journal, Thom Fladung returns to the Free Press as managing editor. Both papers are owned by Knight Ridder. He replaces Carole Leigh Hutton , who was promoted to the top job in June after the April death of Executive Editor Robert G. McGruder. "Working at the Freep was a wonderful experience, and I look forward to getting back and doing it again," says Fladung, 42, who left the Detroit paper as metro editor after six years there. His time at the Beacon Journal, he says, "was a tremendous honor... It's a newspaper that has a great tradition in its own right." The Canton, Ohio, native says the decision to leave his home state was a tough one, but "the opportunity to work in Detroit again was too good to pass up." Hutton says staffers are elated. "It's not very often that you get to stand up in front of your staff and make them as happy as they were that day."