Roger Parlby, editor-in-chief and managing director of the Newark Advertiser, has been appointed MBE in the New Year Honours List for services to the newspaper industry and to the community of Nottinghamshire.

He has been with the newspaper for more than 63 years, serving the company from 1941, except for war service from 1943 in Burma and Sumatra.

Roger, (right), joined the Advertiser board in 1959, became editor in 1967 and editor-in-chief in 1984.

He is one of the longest-serving editors in Britain.

He is a member of the Newspaper Society council and a past chairman of the Weekly Independent Newspaper Association.

He was a founder director of regional radio company Radio Trent and served for a long period on the Trent Crime Prevention Panel.

He is president of the Newark Talking Newspaper for the Blind and from 1967 has been a trustee of the Sir Stuart Goodwin Trust. He is also a trustee of the Newark Arts and Leisure Foundation and a trustee of St George’s military chapel in Newark Parish Church. Roger was one of a small group that created Newark Palace Theatre in the 1970s and he chaired a fund-raising support group in Newark for the newly-launched Lincolnshire University as well as heading a civic awards committee concerned with the conservation and refurbishment of Newark buildings.

In 1998 he served as president of Newark and Nottinghamshire Agricultural Show and in 2004 he was cloathed a Liveryman of the Worshipful Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers, having previously become a Freeman of the City of London.

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