By Cliff Radel
The Cincinnati Enquirer

A vintage Royal typewriter occupies a prominent place in Hollis Towns' office. He displays it - case lid lifted to reveal the typewriter's aging body of steel - as a reminder of his roots and journalism's traditions.

Hollis Towns, new Managing Editor of the Cincinnati Enquirer. (Joseph Fuqua II photo)

Towns explained the typewriter's significance Monday. He was in the middle of his first day on the job as the Enquirer's new managing editor.

Managing editor for the past four years at the Kalamazoo Gazette in Kalamazoo, Mich., Towns succeeds Rosemary Goudreau, who left last fall to become editorial page editor at the Tampa Tribune. She occupied the No. 2 spot in the Enquirer's newsroom for five years.

Describing himself as "a straight-shooter, an electronics bug and a dedicated family man," Towns and his wife, Gail, have four children, Michael, Tyler, Jessica and William.

Towns, 40, whose frame recalls his time spent in college as a football linebacker, has a resume that includes a 12-year stint as an editor and reporter at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He grew up in the small central Georgia town of Fort Valley.

"The closest big city is Macon," Towns said.

Macon was once the proud home of Royal's typewriter factory. "That typewriter reminds me of old-school journalism," he said, "when the story mattered."

Towns intends to make stories matter in the Enquirer. "My goal is to find a way to make the paper relevant every day, to find a way to matter, to be witty, to be irreverent when necessary."

And to be better.

"I'm a stickler for excellence," Towns said.

"The Enquirer is a good newspaper. I want it to be a great newspaper."

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E-mail cradel@enquirer.com