Frank Fellone
The Drivetime Mahatma is no longer a pooh-bah at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
After about 20 years as deputy editor, Frank Fellone is back out in the newsroom as a reporter, working basically half-time. Fellone, who will continue writing the popular weekly traffic and highways column that gave him the title Mahatma, had been a boss at the paper since becoming state editor in 1980.
“I was a senior editor here for a long time,” Fellone told Whispers in a telephone talk Thursday, “and recently I decided to step back from being a guy in a suit. I’m a reporter again, and many people here think I’m crazy.”
Doubts about sanity aside, Fellone figured it was time for a change at age 65. He largely stopped writing his monthly op-ed column a year ago.
“I didn’t have anything else to say that I hadn’t said before,” he said. “I wrote an opinion column occasionally, but that’s a moot question now.” He’s happy to keep up Drivetime Mahatma, though. “That’s lasted more than nine years now, and much to my surprise it’s still going strong.”
Fellone, one of the paper’s longest-serving veterans, said he has written a fair number of feature articles over the past five years to keep up his reporting and writing chops. “Right now I’m plowing through a giant spreadsheet of data on the state’s population of women prison inmates. I have no idea what I’m doing, but it’s a lot of fun. I may learn something before I’m done.”
Fellone’s old office space has been taken over by Kim Christ, who now holds the bulky title of deputy managing editor for features and administration.
“I’m in Frank’s old office, but I haven’t taken over all his old duties,” Christ said. “I have plenty, but we shared some of them around the newsroom.”
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