Suzanne Tate - Opinion Page Editor / Bristol Herald Courier

Email: STate@bristolnews.com

Suzanne Tate is the opinion page editor and joined the Bristol Herald Courier in August 2008.

Tate is a native of Norfolk, a 1987 graduate of Granby High School and a 1991 graduate of Virginia Tech, with a bachelor's degree in communications studies.

She has nearly 17 years of newspaper experience and began her journalism career at The Coalfield Progress in Norton, Va., where she worked as a reporter, page designer and editor. She won the Virginia Press Association's statewide Best in Show writing honors in 1996 for a nine-part series on teen pregnancy. She has won 17 personal writing awards from VPA while leading the Norton newspaper to nearly 100 writing, design and photography awards during her five-year tenure as managing editor.

In 2005, she was hired at The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk to lead its education team, which covered 600 public and private schools in South Hampton Roads. In 2006, she was promoted to Chesapeake city editor, directing a team of five reporters who covered the growing city of 215,000 people. Tate was promoted to suburban team leader in January 2008 and managed eight reporters and an assistant team leader in covering two of Virginia's fastest growing cities, Chesapeake and Suffolk.

She has been a member of the Virginia Press Association's news committee since 2000 and its chairman since 2007.

Tate is a proficient home canner and a Master Gardener. She has three children and is married to Robert Baird.