FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Sept. 26, 2001 CONTACT Lisa Lacher, (515) 271-3119 REGISTER PUBLISHER TO SPEAK AT LET'S DU LUNCH OCT. 3 Mary P. Stier, president and publisher of The Des Moines Register, will be the featured speaker at the second Let's DU Lunch event of the fall season on Wednesday, Oct. 3. She will discuss life at the Register in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C. Stier will speak instead of Greg Hanner, principal of CEG Development, who had been scheduled to give a presentation about development along Court Avenue. Hanner canceled his speech due to pressing matters he needed to address in Boston. Stier has been president and publisher of The Des Moines Register since August 2000. She also serves as senior group president of the Gannett Midwest Newspaper Group, which includes 16 daily newspapers in Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan. She has been with Gannett since 1982. She began her career as retail advertising manager at the Iowa City Press-Citizen. Two years later, she was promoted to advertising director. In 1987, she became president/publisher of the Press-Citizen. She assumed the additional responsibility of vice-president in the Central Region of the Newspaper Division in 1990, and was appointed Midwest Group president in 1993. Before joining the Register, she was president and publisher of the Rockford Register Star in Rockford, Ill. The Let's DU Lunch series, which is open to the public, is sponsored by Drake University's Central Iowa Alumni Chapter and the Greater Des Moines Partnership. Each luncheon is held at 11:30 a.m. the first Wednesday of the month at the Younkers Tea Room in downtown Des Moines. The fall series will conclude on Nov. 7 with a presentation by Dave Vellinga, president and CEO of Mercy Medical Center, about the future of health care. For reservations, call the Drake Office of Alumni and Parent Programs at (515) 271-3848. The cost is $15 for each luncheon.