"It's great to be back," said Lange, who will work part-time until April 1 before assuming full-time duties. "Out of the 20 years I've spent in the newspaper business, my four years in Greenville were the best. This is a very dynamic community."

Lange, who turns 65 in May, joked that his so-called "retirement years" have been equivalent to full-time employment, so it wasn't hard to convince him to return to the newspaper. He has been secretary of the Skowhegan-Madison Elks Lodge for the past three years, secretary of the Meridian Masonic Lodge in Pittsfield since 2006, a columnist for Upcountry, a weekly publication in Skowhegan; and a special sections writer for Central Maine Newspapers.

In November 2007, Lange and Sue Cartwright of Big Moose Township launched MooseheadNews.com, an Internet site featuring local news, sports and commentary. "Unfortunately, the timing was terrible," said Lange. "The winter of 2006-07 was virtually snowless until February, so there wasn't enough advertising revenue to keep it going. So we reluctantly closed it in March."

The Moosehead Messenger has since revived its Web site, and Lange plans to add more content and make it more user-friendly.

While he doesn't plan to make major changes to the basic format of the Moosehead Messenger, Lange plans to increase local coverage, add more content to the opinion pages and improve the sports section.

Prior to joining the Moosehead Messenger in 1999, Lange was a sports and special sections writer for the Central Maine Morning Sentinal for seven years. He also wrote a motorsports column "Maine-Ly Racing" for 18 years.

He was also editor of the Norway (Me.) Advertiser-Democrat and Somerset Reporter in Skowhegan in the 1980s and program director of WKTJ in Farmington from 1973-1980.
"This content originally appeared as a copyrighted article in the Tuesday, March 11, 2008 edition of the Moosehead Messenger and is used here with permission."