The Ogden Newspapers, which owns the Enterprise, named Enterprise and Lake Placid News Staff Writer Elizabeth Izzo to the position on Thursday, July 15.

Izzo has spent the past two years covering the state Olympic Regional Development Authority, the village of Lake Placid and the towns of North Elba, Keene, Wilmington and Jay for both the Enterprise and its sister newspaper, the Lake Placid News. When the coronavirus pandemic reached this area, she also took on the daily newspaper’s health beat.

“We are happy to be able to fill the managing editor position with someone from within the current staff,” said Charles Jarvis, regional publisher for The Ogden Newspapers, Inc. “Elizabeth has been a solid, enterprising reporter for the Enterprise. She has gained a reputation as a reporter who strives for fairness and accuracy. I’m confident she will be the same kind of editor.

“Elizabeth has chosen to live in this community and her love for the area and this newspaper was a strength for her in our selection process.”

Izzo succeeds Peter Crowley, who served as the Enterprise’s managing editor for 16-and-a-half years before leaving the paper in June to pursue a career in education. She is the second woman in the Enterprise’s 126-year history to serve as managing editor. The first was the late Evelyn Outcalt, who worked at the newspaper for 20 years, mostly in the 1960s and 1970s, including during the 1980 Olympic Winter Games. Outcalt died at the age of 100 in 2018.

Izzo is a resident of Saranac Lake. She grew up in Peru, New York. She has worked in the newspaper industry full-time for more than five years. Before that, Izzo worked on a part-time or freelance basis for four years, including as a columnist at Sun Community News in Elizabethtown.

“I didn’t get into this industry in the ‘traditional’ way. I didn’t go to school for journalism,” Izzo said. “I worked my way into this business. I started as a freelance music critic for a digital outlet while I was still in high school. I started my own magazine at the age of 18, a quarterly review focusing on folk music. My entire life changed when I was given the opportunity to write an arts and entertainment column for one of my local newspapers, The Sun.

“That column turned into a job as a news clerk, then a job as a general assignment reporter, and so on,” Izzo said. “It took years of work and an unwavering dedication to the mission of journalism to get to where I am now.

“My editor at The Sun — Pete DeMola, who is at the Albany Times-Union now — gave me the tools I needed to be a good reporter. His criticism and guidance have shaped me both as a reporter and as a person. He taught me to ask the hard questions, to be fair but independent and unrelenting. Throughout the past two years, Peter Crowley and (Lake Placid News Editor) Andy Flynn have supported me and empowered me to further hone my skills. I hope to be the kind of editor who does the same for the Enterprise’s reporters.”

Izzo’s first day on the job was Friday, July 16.