About Us

Susan started in the newspaper business in 1984 as an advertising representative and has worked as an advertising manager, general manager and, now, publisher. Susan is also one of the Coastal Point’s star photographers, gracing the pages of numerous issues of The Point and our annual calendar with her scenic photos. She’s been married 30 years to Andy Lyons, with whom she has three children and now three grandchildren.

When not at the Coastal Point’s home base or with Andy, Susan loves getting out from behind a desk to work with clients and do some photography. She can often be found outside, kayaking the area’s canals and bays, chasing her Bernese Mountain dog, Tuck, and working on her secret garden. She is a member of the Barefoot Gardeners, Preceptor Omega and Mariner’s Bethel United Methodist Church.

Susan has also been very active with the Bethany-Fenwick Area Chamber of Commerce, serving four different stints on its board of directors.

He has worked as a reporter and editor in California, Philadelphia, Connecticut, Maryland, Atlanta and various other locales. He’s been a full-time editor since 1999, and, despite his roving ways, has been with the Coastal Point since the paper’s inception in 2004. (Coincidentally, he has not been seen with hair since that very day.)

In addition to his editorial duties, Darin also pens a weekly column that expounds on such things as sports, pop culture and the immanent threat to humanity posed by a renegade Sussex County band of mutant raccoons led by the great and genuinely evil Leviathan. Darin is now officially more influential than Oprah, being single-handedly responsible for the sale of 59 neti pots after chronicling his experience with using one. Sinus cavities of the world, be free!

In his free time, Darin enjoys sports, studying Roman, American and Irish history, and playing poker with a local group of players. He is married to the lovely and tolerant Jamie McCann, and wastes a ton of energy chasing around their two dogs, Bailey and Guinness. (Bonus points if you can figure out where they got those names…)

Since moving to Delaware in 2001, Shaun has taken the graphic design skills he began accumulating in high school and employed them in the newspaper business, working for local weeklies until he joined Mission Coastal Point in January 2004 and developed the look of the Coastal Point in print and on the Internet. He has since earned multiple Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association (MDDC) awards for advertising design, page design and photography, as well as designing the Coastal Point’s cutting-edge Web site makeover for its February 2008 debut.

With a passion for computers and gadgets, Shaun is also the Coastal Point’s in-house tech support guy, as well as occasional author of some of our technology columns. In his free time (which is mostly in the wee hours of the morning), Shaun loves to play Texas Hold’em poker, listen to music and raid with his death knight and shaman characters in the online role-playing game World of Warcraft.

Many moons later, Tricia returned to journalism and her childhood vacation spot in Delaware, working as the copy editor and music columnist for a local weekly newspaper before expanding into layout and editorial duties. Starting her first work on “hard news” when she jointed the Coastal Point in 2004, she has become known for her attendance at nearly all municipal meetings on her beats, attention to detail on regional issues such as beach replenishment and inability to write a story in fewer than 6 million words. At least a few of those words have earned her multiple awards from the Maryland, Delaware, D.C. Press Association (MDDC).

When she’s not attending a meeting or writing a headline, Tricia is generally attending to her young son, who keeps her on her toes and fills her with joy. Even on trips to the beach, she is generally accompanied by a Windows Mobile smartphone, iPod Touch and Kindle e-book reader that keep her up-to-date with the latest news for her Coastal Point technology columns and also, happily, keep the boy entertained.

Jane is also a champion of the Coastal Point’s focus on all things local: Her family lives locally in Ocean View. She has many long-established business relationships in the communities in which she has worked. And, above all, Jane believes in the terms “community newspaper” and “great customer service.” Sounds exactly like a Coastal Point staff member to us!

Jane grew up in Anne Arundel County, Md., on a farm called “Snow Hill,” in a home built in 1770 by Charles Hammond (who also built the Hammond-Harwood House in Annapolis). She has been married for 36 years to Greg “Bubba” Meleady, her high-school sweetheart, whom many in the area know as a regular from the Indian River Inlet Early Morning Fishing Group. The couple moved to the area in 1973 and, in 1976, purchased a home in Ocean View, where they still reside.

Bubba and Jane have one son, Garrett Meleady, who is studying nursing at Del Tech, where he has finished his LPN studies and is continuing on in the RN program in 2010. From 5 years old, he grew up fishing with his dad and the gentlemen fishing group at the inlet, Jane noted. All the locals at the inlet know “Bubba” and his offspring. He sure knows how to catch a fish!

Jane’s own interests range from genealogy of the Hammond and Shipley families of Anne Arundel County to collecting Blue Willow dishes. She also loves gardening and flowers, and her life is owned by a Jack Russell terrier named Jacqueline Onassis Russell and a black cat named Batty Batty.

Rounding out her local credentials, Jane is a member of Mariner’s Bethel United Methodist Church.

Susan – formerly Argo, now Mutz – is one such returnee. We lost her to big-city life in Baltimore, then to her hubby, John, but we won her back to the Coastal Point with our wit and charm. (OK, and the beach resort lifestyle that John liked, too, but who’s counting?)

We’re glad Susan’s around to help our advertising clients, because we sure wouldn’t want her in charge of Internet security after that infamous computer-virus incident back in 2006… Yikes! (But we digress…) She’s also the reason you have to tell us which Susan you want to talk to when you call the Coastal Point. (Just don’t call her “Mutzie.”)

Monica currently writes for our “green” section, as well as feature and news stories, and maintains content on our Web site, at www.coastalpoint.com.

On days when she is not here in the office, you can find her being a full-time mother, life manager and entrepreneur, as well as a newlywed. In recognition of her tremendous awesomeness, Monica has previously been awarded several of the Coastal Point’s own annual Pointies awards, including “One Cool Customer,” the “Theodore Roosevelt Award” and “The Golden Compass.”

Since then, he’s covered town governments, businesses, and the local music and arts scenes, and most recently became the Point’s full-time sports reporter. All the while, he’s kept up the pressure while behind two face-down cards on the poker table, spinning his winning hands into a monthly poker column in the Point.

Ryan also turned down a potentially lucrative career as a professional chef to devote himself to his work at the Coastal Point. After working at the Fenwick Island Crab House since his teens, Ryan did a brief spell as the cook at the Chalkboard restaurant in 2007 before finally deciding it was too hot and getting out of the kitchen.

Ryan has been known to ride his bicycle to work – for fun! – so if you see him peddling around, be careful not to run him over. We’d miss him – except on Friday poker nights, when the guys would rather he were waylaid by a few hours.

Jesse is a Sussex County native and graduated from Indian River High School. He’s been helping out at the Coastal Point for a while now, but we decided he made days in the Coastal Point multiplex more fun, so we’re now keeping him busy with regular work. (It’s bad when we don’t keep him busy, so we didn’t have much choice.)

Jesse is prized not only for his top-notch photography skills and his way with lights and video but also for his affability and what we have come to call “Jesse-isms”: those droll and telling little commentaries he inserts so subtly into normal conversations, eliciting guffaws, giggles and suddenly snorted beverages from everyone in the room.

For example:

“Things I’ve been called rather than photographer: ‘Camera guy’ and ‘picture taker.’”

On selling Coastal Point calendars for $5: “You can get an autographed one for $7.50.”

And, “I don’t care what kind of bread it is, as long as it’s triangles. I don’t eat squares, or rectangles.”

If you can’t get enough of that wit, never fear. Jesse’s going to start writing for us, too.

When she is not in the pulpit, she volunteers at a local youth hostel and likes to work with various plant species.

What initially drew Bob to the Coastal Point was its small size and giant local viewpoint. What has kept him here is the people and their passion for what they do. That, and the Friday-night poker game. (No girls allowed.)

Simply put, Bob is our resident genius, coming up with unique and colorful ideas that have led to a bevy of Maryland, Delaware, D.C. (MDDC) Press Association awards for advertising design.

Tune in each week to the staff box in our printed edition as Editor Darin McCann crafts a new job title for Bob, who has likely earned most – if not all – of the pointed jabs and at least as many of the accolades.

Along with a feistiness that lets her accomplish nearly any task set before her (and needle Editor Darin McCann more successfully than most), Jaime possesses a bachelor’s degree in graphic design from Salisbury University and a gift for tripping over level flooring surfaces.

Jaime is also responsible for adding Maryland, Delaware, D.C. (MDDC) Press Association awards to the Coastal Point’s Hall of Honor (girl power!). But the thing she treasures the most aren’t the shiny gold trophies but rather the little girl she and Declan brought into the world in 2008.