Editor of The Mercury retiring after 41-year career
Nancy March is retiring from The Mercury after 41 years, 21 of them as editor.
She is also retiring as senior editor, East region, for Digital First Media and as regional editor for the Philadelphia cluster which includes The (Delaware County) Daily Times, Trentonian, (West Chester) Daily Local News, The (Norristown) Times Herald, The (Lansdale) Reporter, and five groups of weekly newspapers.
“I have had the great fortune to work with Nancy for more than two decades, and I have marveled at her leadership, passion and vision to guide us through this rapidly changing and very challenging business,” said Edward S. Condra, senior publisher for the Philadelphia region, Digital First Media.
“As impressive as her career has been in the larger aspect of our company, at her core, Nancy has always been a Pottstown Mercury journalist — a journalist who has tirelessly served her community and made it a better place.”
A graduate of Boyertown Area High School, March began working as a reporter at The Mercury in 1975, the week she graduated from Penn State University with a degree in journalism.
She was a general assignment and features writer, covering every aspect of news in the Pottstown and Boyertown areas. As Pottstown schools reporter, she covered the state Human Relations Commission order to integrate local schools. She also covered Chester County Courts, including the murder trials of the infamous Johnston brothers whose story became the movie, “At Close Range.”
In 1984, she was promoted to wire editor and then correspondents editor, city editor and managing editor before being named executive editor in 1989.
She left The Mercury during a
change of management in 1992 and became features editor and managing editor at the Daily Local News. She also worked as an editor for Progressive Business Publications in Malvern, returning to The Mercury in 1998 as editor.
She has won numerous awards for reporting, editorial writing and public service, including this year’s second place Keystone Press Award from the Pennsylvania News Media Association for editorial writing. She is known as a steadfast advocate for fair school funding in Pennsylvania, particularly as it relates to Pottstown schools, and has guided The Mercury in its reputation for local watchdog reporting.
She won several awards for public service in 2006 for The Mercury’s “Letters to Harrisburg” campaign that put pressure on state lawmakers to overturn their 2005 late-night pay raise.
Earlier this year, March was named a YWCA TriCounty Outstanding Woman in Business. She has also been honored by the Montgomery County Women’s Center for leadership in reporting on domestic violence and by the Southeastern Pennsylvania American Cancer Society with a Partners in Hope award for The Mercury’s support of the Pottstown Relay for Life.
March is married to Bill March, a former managing editor at The Mercury who retired a year ago from the Daily Local News after 54 years in journalism. They have three children, Christopher, a journalist for Twitter in New York City; Scott, East/Midwest director of Go!Athletics; and Mandy, a fourth-year medical student at Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine.