Two former editors rejoin Times staff


Regina Mozingo

Bruce Roberts

After the departure last week of longtime Times staff member Jessi Dreckman, who is joining the faculty at Lutie High School, the newspaper welcomed back two former Times editors, Regina Wynn Mozingo and Bruce Roberts, who have stepped in to help report the happenings of the county.

Mozingo, who is rejoining the Times full-time, has worked in newspapers since 1992, when she began her career at The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home, Arkansas. She joined the Ozark County Times as a graphic artist in 1999 and then began her role as a writer and photographer in the early 2000s. She was promoted to the editor’s job in 2008 and continued in that role until 2011, when she married Brian Mozingo and moved to his home in Monett, where she was a stay-at-home mom to his daughter, Hannah.

In fall 2013, the Mozingos moved back to Gainesville, and Regina rejoined the Times in August 2015, working part-time while also homeschooling her stepdaughter.

“I couldn’t stay out of the newspaper business very long,” said Mozingo. “My mother always said I have ink in my blood.”

Two years later, in August 2017, Mozingo left the Times to become the news editor at the West Plains Daily Quill. She worked at the Quill until May 2019 then took a few months off to focus on her family before returning “home” to the Times.

“I’m excited to come back to the Times,” she said. “I have always loved working at this newspaper and I love reporting the stories of the people in Gainesville and Ozark County. I feel as if I never left. I came home.”

Mozingo lives in Gainesville with her husband, Brian, and stepdaughter Hannah, now 13.

Like Mozingo, Bruce Roberts, a 1986 Bakersfield High School graduate, is on his third stint at the Times, having most recently worked at the newspaper from 2010 to 2015.

“It’s great to be back at the Times, where my newspaper career began in 1989,” he said. 

Roberts, who later served as Times editor, lives in the Midway, Arkansas, area. He also worked for The Baxter Bulletin in Mountain Home for 16 years as a writer, photographer, designer and most recently as the newspaper’s city editor.

He and his wife, Dawn, have two grown children who live in the Mountain Home area.

“I like to say I’m semi-retired,” Roberts said. “But I just love covering Ozark County. The people here are second to none. I love telling their stories and promoting this beautiful county.”

In his spare time, Bruce loves to travel, and he also enjoys photography and video production. He is actively involved in his local church, Hope Center Church in Mountain Home, where he serves on the board of directors.

Roberts will be working part-time, joining editor Sue Ann Jones, advertising manager Jenny Yarger, circulation manager/reporter Amelia LaMair and publisher and owner Norene Prososki.

“We’re delighted to welcome these two experienced journalists back to the Times staff,” Prososki said. “Both Bruce and Regina are talented writers with roots in Ozark County. Sue Ann and I are looking forward to working with them covering the news of our county. Not many weekly papers have a news team of this caliber, and I feel blessed to work alongside them.”

Ozark County Times

504 Third Steet
PO Box 188
Gainesville, MO 65655

Phone: (417) 679-4641
Fax: (417) 679-3423