E-mail: janet.metzner@patch.com

Phone: 410-302-9093

Hometown: Wheeling, W.Va.

How I got to Maryland:  In 2007, came to work as the assistant city editor with The Capital newspaper in Annapolis. Since Sept. 2010, I've been the editor for Pikesville Patch, a publication of AOL/Huffington Post Media Group.

Politics: From conservative to independent.

Religion: Methodist, who attends New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, and St. Marks on the Hill Episcopal Church in Pikesville.

Janet has worked in newspaper, radio and Internet since 1990, except for four years as a quality improvement manager for VITAS Healthcare Corporation in San Antonio, Texas, and one year as communications director for Hospice of the Lawton Area, Inc., in Oklahoma.

Most recently she was assistant city editor for The Capital daily newspaper in Annapolis; a government and education reporter for The Pittsburgh-Tribune Review; and statehouse, government, courts and general assignments reporter for The Dominion Post in Morgantown, W.V.

Daily newspaper work includes The San Antonio Light, a Hearst publication, in Texas. Also in San Antonio, she was entertainment editor for the multimedia company The News of Texas.

She's been a staffer for The Lawton (Okla.) Constitution and The Wheeling (W.Va.) News-Register, and was assistant editor at The Paisano student-run newspaper at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Her experience in radio includes announcer at KLAW Country Music Radio in Lawton, Okla., and at The News of Texas in San Antonio.

She interned with Clear Channel Communications' flagship radio station, WOAI Newsradio, in San Antonio.

She's covered business, airplane crashes, the Sago Mine disaster in 2006, elections and a gubernatorial inauguration; and West Virginia University, hospitals, health and scientific research.

Janet graduated with a degree in English and a concentration in German language from the University of Texas at San Antonio, after attending West Virginia University for two years where she was a varsity swimmer.

She did graduate work in English Communication Studies at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.

Her son, Army Capt. Justin Messenger, is a 2009 West Point graduate who's had tours in Iraq and South Korea. He's stationed at Fort Benning, GA, with Emily, his wife.