Founded in 2008 by Nikki Bowman, New South Media, Inc. is a multimedia company that publishes lifestyle, business, and travel magazines for national audiences. New South Media, Inc. publishes WV Living, Morgantown, WV Weddings, WV Living Outdoors, and West Virginia Focus. Custom publications include the Explore brand and The Ultimate Sports & Travel Guide to the Big 12. Many of these publications are also available digitally on Issuu. Visit newsouthmediainc.com to learn more about New South Media and its publications.
Who We Are
Nikki Bowman – Founder, Publisher, and Editor
Nikki Bowman, a West Virginia native, is the founder and owner of New South Media, Inc., which publishes the critically acclaimed WV Living, WV Weddings, West Virginia Focus, Explore, and Morgantown magazines. In January 2015, her company also took over the editorial and design of Wonderful West Virginia magazine. She graduated from West Virginia University and received her master’s degree in Writing from DePaul University in Chicago.
Nikki has nearly 15 years of experience editing magazines in Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Mississippi, and has won several industry awards. Since moving back to West Virginia in 2008 to launch WV Living and WV Weddings magazines, she has logged thousands of miles in her car driving from one corner of the state to the other. She frequently speaks about the need for West Virginians to become invested in their communities and to take pride in their heritage, and she has seen firsthand the important role that tourism has in keeping our state’s small towns and businesses viable. Through her magazines, she is a passionate advocate for encouraging West Virginians to discover the hidden gems in their own backyard.
Nikki serves on the several boards including the Morgantown Chamber of Commerce, Tamarack Artisan Foundation, Regional Board of AAA, and the Greater Morgantown Convention and Visitor’s Bureau. She was recently chosen as a Folio: Top Woman in Media in 2015 and was given the SBA’s 2014 Women Business Champion Award. Nikki was also chosen by the Women’s Business and Training Center as the 2011 Pocahontas County Woman Business Leader and selected by the State Journal as one of the Generation Next 40 under 40. Her company is the recipient of six Star of the Industry Awards given by the West Virginia Division of Tourism.
Carla Witt Ford – Art Director and Senior Graphic Designer
A native West Virginian, Carla has been adding her touch to photography, print, and other areas of design for more than half of her life. Before joining WV LIVING she was a photographer for the government and an adjunct photography professor at Fairmont State University (BS Graphic Design alumna). As a BFA graduate from the West Virginia University School of Design, she seeks to share the beauty of her beloved state through her work. Whether it is with wit or wisdom, as an artist, she is always looking for new ways to make her audience sit up and take notice.
She currently lives on her family farm in Marion County with her daughter, Olivia, and five cats.
Pam Kasey – Managing Editor
Pam has traveled, brewed, farmed, counseled, and renovated, but most loves to write. Her most recent writing position was as senior energy reporter with The State Journal in Charleston. She has degrees in economics from the University of Chicago and in journalism from West Virginia University. She and her husband, Evan, rehabilitated a Civil War-era log house outside Morgantown and they live there with their teenage son, Reese, and Perry the Cat.
Zack Harold – Associate Editor
Zack is a southern West Virginia native. In elementary school, he thought he would be cartoonist when he grew up. By middle school, he wanted to be a professional country musician. In early high school, he wanted to be a music teacher but changed his mind. He considered going into computer programming. Then, much to his parents’ chagrin, he fell in love with journalism and went on to study print and broadcast journalism at the University of Charleston. After college, he got a job at the Charleston Daily Mail where he covered education, health, and government before becoming the newspaper’s features editor. He became managing editor of West Virginia Focus in January 2015. He now lives in Boone County with his wife Whitney, an elementary school teacher, and their cat Minka, who doesn’t do much. His parents have reconsidered their earlier opinions about journalism.
Heather Mills – Sales Director
Heather grew up living on top of Snowshoe Mountain where she developed a love of skiing and worked as a ski instructor all through high school and college. She graduated Marshall University with a Journalism/Advertising degree. Heather has worked almost her entire career in advertising. Starting in newspaper, she has both represented clients and worked in media. Heather has made her home in WV, purposefully staying to raise her family in the state she loves. She resides in Salem, WV with her family and continues to enjoy skiing, camping, festival-hopping, motorcycling and travel.
Buddy Butler – Partner, Narrative by New South Media
Buddy has worked in the development of brand strategies, media planning and creative efforts for the West Virginia Division of Tourism, Travel South USA, Adventures on the Gorge, Lexington Rockbridge VA CVB, Visit Southern West Virginia, Winterplace Ski Resort, the Wilds and over a dozen destinations in West Virginia, Virginia, Ohio, New Jersey and Georgia. He served most recently as Senior Vice President of the Stonewall Group, a full-service marketing agency in Marietta, Ohio.
Butler served on the West Virginia Tourism Commission from 1999 to 2002 and is a long-standing member of the Board of Directors for the West Virginia Hospitality & Travel Association. In 2002, Butler was named “Distinguished West Virginian” by Governor Bob Wise for his work in tourism. Buddy received a Bachelors of Communication from Bowling Green State University and a Masters of Organizational Communication from Ohio University.