Two employees of the Journal & Topics Newspapers have been promoted to new positions within the 72-year-old company that publishes 16 community newspapers in Chicago's Northwest and North suburbs.

Denise Fleischer, an employee in the Journal & Topics Editorial Department since 1983, has been named Lifestyle Editor of the publishing group. Mary Alice Wenzl, a Journal & Topics employee for more than three years in the Circulation Department and Reception area, has been named Director of Administration, a newly-created position in the company.

Mrs. Fleischer in her new role, will continue to process community , special section and some Travel news for most of the 16 Journal & Topics Newspapers. She will edit news copy, assign and process photographs, write headlines, write stories, design pages and meet deadlines.

For the last 19 years, she has had a leading role in the Journal & Topics Proofreading and Typesetting departments. While she will continue to contribute in those areas, most of her responsibilities will move toward developing a more comprehensive and reader friendly Lifestyle Section for the newspaper chain. Among the planned additions are more feature articles and photos.

During her years at the Journal & Topics, Mrs. Fleischer has seen the paper grow substantially. In 1988, she created The Community Profile column, a weekly article that profiles local community clubs and organizations. In 1995, she assumed increased responsibilities at the company by taking on more editing duties as the Journal & Topics longtime Family Editor, Mary Jane Wessell, scaled back her workload and began to travel more in her role as Travel Editor.

"Denise is one of the most reliable and hard-working employees we have at the Journal & Topics," said Managing Editor Todd Wessell. "Her elevation to a more prominent role is long overdue. Her continued involvement and leadership role at the Journal will greatly assist us in our plans to grow and better serve our readers."

When not working at the Journal & Topics, Mrs. Fleischer generates copy for her web site Gotta Write Network Online (gottawritenetwork.com), hosting a chat line on the AOL Entertainment channel called The Realms of the Supernatural & Paranormal, co-hosting the Writer to Writer chat on iUniverse and reading review books for her web site. She is also an avid reader of time travel, romance, culinary and mystery books. In August 2003, Fleischer's time travel/paranormal novel, "The Guardian", will be published by Port Town Publishing in Superior, Wisc.

Mrs. Fleischer and her husband, Ernest, have two daughters, Jennifer, 23, and Lauren, 10, two dogs, three birds, and two Asian turtles.

Mary Alice Wenzl was hired by the Journal on July 9, 1999 answering an ad for a receptionist. In the ensuing months, she quickly took on many added responsibilities in the growing company including working with specialized computer software, ordering newsprint and ink, coordinating departments with one another, buying job printing, and hiring new employees.

A Des Plaines resident in the city's south side 6th ward for the last 23 years, Mrs. Wenzl, her late husband, and their son, Tom, moved here from Chicago's northwest side.

After graduating from high school, Mary Alice went to work for The Milwaukee Road at Union Station in the Freight Traffic Dept. where she remained until the mid-1970s. While her son Tom was in school, Mrs. Wenzl was involved in a variety of organizations including the Orchard Place School PTA and Maine West Parents for Scholarship group. She was also a substitute in the Orchard Place library. Besides her son Tom, Mrs. Wenzl also has a stepson, two stepdaughters and eight grandchildren.

Golf is at the top of Mary Alice's list of favorite things to do. She is a member of the Adult Choir at Our Lady of Hope Church and is a member of the Des Plaines Optimist Club.

"Mary Alice's energy, intelligence, cooperative attitude, and affability have quickly demonstrated to everyone at the Journal that she helps make this company function well," said Wessell. "She has that uncanny ability to tackle any kind of subject and problem without complaint. Mary Alice is easy to work with, making her one of the company's most respected employees, and is well organized which makes her perfectly suited to take on a prominent role in helping plan for our future growth."