Thursday, March 28, 2024

Select Page

Navajo Times fills editor position, welcomes return of Duane Beyal

Navajo Times fills editor position, welcomes return of Duane Beyal

WINDOW ROCK

Duane Beyal portrait

Duane Beyal

It’s a homecoming of sorts as Duane Beyal, former reporter and editor of the Navajo Times, has been appointed to be the Navajo Times’ editor again.

Beyal replaces Candace Begody who stepped down as editor in early 2016 to run for the Arizona senate (she later dropped out of the race). Since her departure, Cindy Yurth, who covered the Chinle area for the paper, stepped in on an interim basis.

Tom Arviso Jr., CEO and publisher of the Navajo Times Publishing Company, Inc., said the paper received about 20 applications for the position over the past several months. About half of the applicants were from Navajos and most came from people living on or near the reservation.

“A special panel from in-house management and from the Times board of directors interviewed the applicants, some more than once,” said Arviso. “We selected Beyal for a number of reasons, including the fact that he was the most experienced.”

As a past editor of the paper, Arviso added, Beyal understands the “unique aspects” of running the largest newspaper in Indian Country.

“His past work with the Times as well as working in various tribal positions with former Navajo Chairman and President Peterson Zah and for the Navajo Nation Council, also gave him a good background in understanding the issues facing the Navajo people,” said Arviso.

Born in Los Angeles, but raised in the Fort Defiance and Church Rock areas of the Navajo Reservation, Beyal attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, as well as Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff.

He first started working for the Navajo Times as a copy editor in 1980 when Jim Largo was the paper’s editor.

It didn’t take him long to learn how the system worked in those days.

This was during the 1980 election season and he remembers writing a story about one of the rallies of Peter MacDonald, who was running for his third term as chairman.


 To read the full article, pick up your copy of the Navajo Times at your nearest newsstand Thursday mornings!

Are you a digital subscriber? Read the most recent three weeks of stories by logging in to your online account.

  Find newsstand locations at this link.

Or, subscribe via mail or online here.




About The Author

Bill Donovan

Bill Donovan wrote about Navajo Nation government and its people since 1971. He joined Navajo Times in 1976, and retired from full-time reporting in 2018 to move to Torrance, Calif., to be near his kids. He continued to write for the Times until his passing in August 2022.

ADVERTISEMENT

Weather & Road Conditions

Window Rock Weather

Fair

23.0 F (-5.0 C)
Dewpoint: 21.0 F (-6.1 C)
Humidity: 92%
Wind: Calm
Pressure: 30.18

More weather »

ADVERTISEMENT