Helen McDonald ExumThe funeral service for Helen McDonald Exum, longtime vice president of the Chattanooga News-Free Press, will be Wednesday at 11 a.m. at the First Presbyeterian Church in Chattanooga.
Exum, the driving force behind the newspaper’s lifestyle section for decades, died Thursday night at her Lookout Mountain home. She was 89.
She was the oldest of five children of Elizabeth and Roy McDonald, who founded the Free Press in 1936.
For many years, while raising six children, Exum was food editor of the evening newspaper. In the 1970s, she became a full-time editor, presiding over sweeping coverage of travel, gardening, food, entertainment and related “living” news features.
Exum traveled extensively across the globe to bring first-person features to her readers’ homes.