CINCINNATI, Ohio — Judith G. Clabes, special projects director for the Scripps newspaper division since September 1995, has been elected president and chief executive officer of the Scripps Howard Foundation. She succeeds Albert J. Schottelkotte, president and CEO since 1986, who has been elected chairman of the foundation board. The appointments are effective today.The Scripps Howard Foundation, a non-profit, charitable organization, was created by the company in 1962. It promotes excellence in journalism through scholarships, grants and an annual awards program that is recognized among the nation’s most prestigious competitions. In addition, the foundation financially supports literacy and volunteer programs in communities where Scripps does business, and administers the corporate giving program.”Through her rich background as an educator, as someone fiercely dedicated to community involvement and as a journalist and editor on both the local and national stage, Mrs. Clabes is ideally suited to lead the foundation into the new century,” said William R. Burleigh, president and CEO of The E.W. Scripps Company.Clabes joined Scripps in 1971 as the Newspaper in Education program coordinator at The Evansville (Ind.) Printing Corporation. She was soon promoted to community affairs director and associate editor of The Evansville Press and, in 1978, to editor of The Sunday Courier & Press in Evansville. She became editor of The Kentucky Post, based in Covington, in 1983 and continued in that position until she moved to corporate headquarters in Cincinnati. She has been a foundation trustee since 1990.Until recently, she wrote a nationally syndicated column that was distributed by Scripps Howard News Service. Many of the columns were collected and published in 1990 as books titled “By Judy! About Working Moms and Other Human Things” and “Things I Haven’t Finished Saying Yet.” She’s also authored “New Guardians of the Press,” a book that profiled women newspaper editors; “Language Arts and the Disinterested Student,” a guide to using the newspaper as a teaching tool; and numerous articles in professional publications and general circulation newspapers.She was graduated from the University of Kentucky with a degree in English and journalism, and received a master’s degree in public administration from Indiana State University. In 1986, she received an honorary doctorate of law from the University of Southern Indiana, and in 1990 she received an honorary doctorate of letters from the University of Southern Indiana.Her professional affiliations include two terms on the board of directors of the American Society of Newspaper Editors (ASNE), service on the Pulitzer Prize Nominating Jury in 1984-85, membership on ASNE’s 1984 delegation to the Soviet Union, and a term as president of the Kentucky Associated Press Editors Association in 1985.Clabes has received widespread recognition for professional excellence and community service, including the Greater Cincinnati YWCA’s Career Woman of Achievement Award; induction into the University of Kentucky Hall of Distinguished Alumni; the Northern Kentucky University Lincoln Award; and the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce Frontiersman Award.Clabes, a native of Henderson, Ky., lives in Ft. Mitchell, Ky., with her husband, Gene, a weekly newspaper publisher. They have two sons, Joe, 26, and Jake, 21.