Editor's Page

With this issue, we bid farewell to retiring Editor Merrill Windsor, 65, who plans to "catch up on a lot of long-deferred family activities and tackle some personal writing and research projects."

In his four years with the magazine, Merrill insisted upon extremely high standards for writing, editing, and proofreading copy, which often meant his laboring into the wee hours. He also was a stickler for accuracy and would go to almost any length attempting to ensure that everything the magazine published was error-free. The many long hours spent working toward that goal were well worth the effort, he believed, since schoolchildren as well as adults were using the magazine as a prime source of information about the state and its people. Another of Merrill's assets was his management ability. His low-key, unflappable style drew the staff into a tightknit team that garnered for the magazine numerous awards for excellence in design, photography, and writing-plus the good will of a long list of authors and photographers. He leaves with the best wishes of everyone on the staff. Taking the helm with the June issue is Bob Early, 53, who for 21 years was a reporter and editor with The Arizona Republic. From 1985 until last May, Early was editor, then consulting editor, of Phoenix Metro Magazine. At The Republic, Early was managing editor for four years and city editor for eight years, which included 1976 when he won the Arizona Press Club's Newsman of the Year award. Publisher Hugh Harelson praised Windsor's tenure as editor. "In the last four years, Merrill has established even higher standards for a publication already recognized nationally as the best in its field. The magazine is losing a talented editor, a man admired by all of us at Arizona Highways. "The magazine is fortunate to find an excellent replacement in Bob Early, who is a skilled and experienced editor with a solid management and computer background and great affection for Arizona."