Natchez native Jan Griffey has been named associate publisher and editor of The Natchez Democrat, natchezdemocrat.com and affiliated publications.

Griffey returns to Natchez after working most recently as associate publisher and editor of Shelby County (Ala.) Newspapers, owned by Boone Newspapers Inc. (BNI), which also owns The Democrat.

Griffey is a 1980 graduate of South Natchez-Adams High School and a 1984 graduate of the University of Southwestern Louisiana in Lafayette, La.

“We’re delighted to have Jan join our Natchez team,” Democrat publisher Kevin Cooper said. “I’ve known Jan for many, many years, and we are thrilled to have her come home to Natchez. I have no doubt she’ll be a valuable asset to both the newspaper and to the greater community.”

Griffey’s first newspaper job was in 1981 as an intern at The Democrat. After graduating college, she worked at The Ironton (Ohio) Tribune newspaper as a reporter and later became its managing editor. Griffey worked for two decades in Niles, Mich., as editor and later publisher of Leader Publications, also a BNI-managed newspaper.

She is the daughter of Irene Kelly Wall, the late Bill Wall and the late Jim Griffey.

In communities in which she’s previously lived and worked, she’s volunteered with the local United Way chapters, Chambers of Commerce and, most recently, was a member of the board of directors of the Shelby Humane Society.