Your Lost Coast Outpost, for one, is startled. We pictured J Warren “Hold the Punctuation” Hockaday serving out his days happily in the Chamber’s inner chamber, surrounded by nymphs and humidors and other trappings of power.

It was not to be! Off J jumps into the rough-and-tumble world of small-town commercial television — an atmosphere in which a media conglomerate is buying up all the competition and quietly threatening to launch their own newscast, thereby going head-to-head with J Warren’s new team. Uncertain waters. What will the future hold?

Not that J is a complete stranger to the klieg lights. He was a TV newsman himself way, way back in the day — 1984, if he recalls correctly — before jettisoning that miserable life for capitalism’s squishy embrace. But the man has some of the old fight left, it seems! Congrats, J!

Press release from KIEM:

KIEM-TV, News Channel 3, today announced that J Warren Hockaday, President/CEO of the Greater Eureka Chamber of Commerce, has been appointed General Manager of the television station replacing Roy Frostenson, who has resigned to take a journalism faculty position at the University of Mississippi. 

In making the announcement KIEM owner Bill Pollack said, “We’re very excited to have J taking over at News Channel 3. He has deep roots in Humboldt County, knows the community well and is widely respected. I am confident he’ll do a great job for us.”

Hockaday has lead the Eureka Chamber for 14 years and previously worked as News Director at KVIQ-TV in Eureka. “I am honored and excited about the opportunity to move my career forward and to work with the highly professional staff and management at KIEM. I leave the Chamber with some regret as the Board and staff have made a significant contribution to the vibrancy of the local business community. I am proud to have played a part in that effort. I leave the organization in a strong position and in very capable hands.”

Hockaday replaces Roy Frostenson who has been GM at KIEM since July of 2008. “I want to thank Roy for his outstanding leadership over the past 5 years and we wish him all the best as he makes this career change” says station owner Pollack. Frostenson is leaving KIEM to take a position as Assistant Director of Student Media/Assistant Professor of Journalism at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, MS.

“I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in Humboldt County and at News Channel 3 and have had the pleasure of working with a great staff but I am looking forward to making this transition to the world of academia and I leave knowing that the station is in great hands with J on board.”