Kerry Miscavage is the first female publisher of the Times Leader Media Group, Wilkes-Barre.

Times Leader Media Group operates and publishes in downtown Wilkes-Barre and includes the Daily and Sunday Times Leader, Sunday Dispatch, Abington Journal, timesleader.com, theweekender.com, GOlackawanna.com and additional publications and websites. Times Leader has been operational in the downtown for over 115 years.

Miscavage is a longtime Times Leader employee with deep roots in the community, working at the media company for more than 28 years.

Miscavage is a Wilkes University graduate and lives with her husband, Michael, in White Haven and their two dogs Bear and Arya. She is a member of these community non-profit organizations: Greater Wyoming Valley Chamber of Commerce, Diamond City Partnership, Dress for Success of Luzerne County, Circle Centre for the Arts, YMCA and most recently the Nepa Alliance and the Kirby Center.

Jake Higgins grew up in the Poconos before graduating from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications with a dual degree in Broadcast/Digital Journalism and Information Management and Technology. He has over a decade of experience in newsrooms across the country and started at the Times Leader in September 2025.

After graduating from Syracuse, Jake was briefly a high school football stringer for the Pocono Record before accepting a multimedia journalist role with News Channel Nebraska. He worked in television for a year before switching to the newspaper industry, where he worked as a general news reporter, sports reporter, and ultimately a sports editor at the Cedar County News in Hartington, Nebraska. In 2019, Jake worked for Rosebud Media and the Mail Tribune in Medford, Oregon before moving back to Northeast Pennsylvania.

In his free time, Jake enjoys spending time with his family, his dog, and watching whatever sports are on TV that day.

Liz Baumeister started her local Journalism career in 2011 as a reporter/photographer at The Abington Journal in Clarks Summit. She has since held various positions at newspapers throughout the region, and in February 2024, she joined The Times Leader staff as news editor.

Liz was born in South Jersey but grew up in Overfield Township in Wyoming County and now resides in Plains Township. She graduated from Luzerne County Community College with an associate degree in journalism in 2012 and an associate degree in photography in 2014. She is a charter member of Restored Church in Wilkes-Barre.

She enjoys reading, watching black-and-white movies, birding, photography, attending concerts and music festivals and crafting. Her favorite movie of all time is “Arsenic and Old Lace,” her favorite TV show is “Doctor Who” and her favorite book is “Blue Like Jazz” by Donald Miller.

Her favorite quote: “Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant.” – Cary Grant

Jennifer Learn-Andes once breathed the same air as Mother Teresa. That is perhaps not as sainted as it sounds - Jen was covering a visit by the famous nun to a church in Schuylkill County. Around our newsroom, however, Jen is venerated for her kindness, professionalism, and dedication to covering Luzerne County government with the community's best interests at heart.

She has earned the trust of political leaders from both parties with her fairness and accuracy. Jen started working at the Times Leader as in intern in 1991 while attending Wilkes University.

A Carbon County native, she is a proud mother and grandmother who enjoys spending time with her family and simple pleasures like sitting down with a good Sudoku puzzle.

Features writer Mary Therese Biebel interviews artists and actors, bee-keepers and bird-watchers, chefs and celebrities and just about anyone else with an interesting story to share.

As one half of the Times Leader's "test kitchen" staff, she's just as willing to tell readers about the pudding she burned as the lentil soup that had her "taste testers" begging for more.

MT's favorite hobbies are hiking and back-packing, which are activities she and her husband, fellow TL reporter Mark Guydish, enjoy undertaking together.

Kevin Carroll is a reporter just making the switch from the Times Leader's nighttime news coverage to the TL sports department. He's hoping to have more success covering local sports than he did playing them, which shouldn't be a tough bar to clear.

His betting column "On the Money" could be seen every Friday, unless he's on a cold streak, in which case it shouldn't be seen at all.

Outside of work, Kevin enjoys spending time at his hometown West Pittston Library and watching professional wrestling, society's greatest artform.

It would be difficult to find a bigger fan in the Wyoming Valley of the Baltimore Ravens, Washington Nationals and Cleveland Cavaliers than John, better known as Erz. A failed musician, he also loves the music of Marillion, Opeth, Black Label Society and Ghost as well as 1980s heavy metal.

Erz also owns two cats, including one recently adopted from the Luzerne County SPCA, and is a huge advocate of adopting adult cats because he believes they are overlooked at animal shelters. He also plays in the Wyoming Valley Adult Baseball League.

Derek Levarse has been writing for the Times Leader since 2006, primarily covering Penn State football. His predecessor, Jerry Kellar, remains a major inspiration and one of the most fondly remembered presences in the Valley.

As a Pittsburgh native and Penn State grad, he has found the widely varying fandoms found across NEPA to be one of the best things about the area, having worked with supporters of teams from Philadelphia to Seattle (and most places in between).

As for himself, he is a lifelong fan of the Pittsburgh Penguins and maintains that Zarley Zalapski is the greatest name in sports.

Ed Lewis covers crime and courts for the Times Leader, a beat he has covered since 1999. He is a graduate of Hanover Area High School and King's College, Wilkes-Barre, with degrees in criminal justice and political science.

Bill's weekly Beyond the Byline column regularly transports readers back to the glory days of Plymouth, Pennsylvania in the 1950s and '60s, when dinner time was family time, there was never a shortage of neighbor kids to start a baseball game, and you could still enjoy a CMP at Golden Quality or a cherry Coke at Rea & Derick. (We know some of you may need to look up those last two.)

But of course Bill's contributions to the paper and the life of the community run much deeper. He is a prolific reporter with deep connections, whose stories on business, politics and everyday people reach all corners of the Wyoming Valley.

Bill O'Boyle is very sentimental. He values family and friends, fishing in Canada, Fantasy Football, golf and dancing to the oldies. He still misses his cat, Lily, and he misses more his parents -- not to mention his hair. He is a fan of New York sports teams — Yankees, Knicks, Giants, Rangers -- and Notre Dame and Penn State. He looks forward to judging the annual Plymouth Kielbasa Festival and he always has time to watch NCIS reruns, Law & Order, sports of all sorts, movies, Seinfeld, Two and a Half Men, Leave It To Beaver, The Blacklist and not much more on his big screen TV. He despises short-sleeved shirts, but loves the beach except for the sand and saltwater. He has been a volunteer for Victory Sports for adults with mental and/or physical challenges and Teeners’ League Baseball, Make-A-Wish, his church and more.

Margaret Roarty started at the Times Leader in 2023 as a general news reporter and recently transitioned into covering Wilkes-Barre City and other municipal government news. In her weekly Times Leader column, "In Frame," she shares her passion for filmmaking by exploring the rich arts and entertainment history in Luzerne County, while also offering movie recommendations and reviews.

In addition to her reporting for the Times Leader, Margaret is a former contributor to The Film Magazine, an online publication focusing on film analysis and reviews. Her entertainment writing can also be found on Cherry Pickers, Directed By Women, and the Bright Lights Film Journal. Her short fiction can be found in Dark Sire Literary Journal's 9th issue. She is also co-host of "Women Are Reading," a book club podcast where she interviews authors and reviews books with her sister, Katie. In 2026, she joined The Luzerne County Arts and Entertainment Hall of Fame arts committee.

Margaret grew up in Luzerne Borough and currently resides in Forty Fort, along with her fiancé, a library full of books, and their orange cat, Jack. In her free time, Margaret can be found obsessively logging films into her Letterboxd, cooking pasta, and writing fiction stories about romantic and fantastical things.

Lyndsay Bartos is a paginator for the Times Leader. She has been with the company since 2018.

Mitchell Hall is a Sports Paginator who has been with the Times Leader since June 14th, 2022. He enjoys writing short stories in his personal time and sitting down to the latest episodes of The Mandalorian with his family. If he's not in the office, he's hanging out with his friends and family whenever he gets the chance.