Ameren Corporation Directors Elect Highly Respected St. Louis Newscaster Karen Foss, Vice President, Public Relations

ST. LOUIS, Feb. 21 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The board of directors of Ameren Corporation has elected well-known broadcast journalist Karen Foss as vice president for Public Relations at its Missouri-based utility company, AmerenUE.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20070221/CGW045 )

Foss is a nationally honored newscaster who spent more than 25 years as anchor of KSDK-TV in St. Louis and is known as "the face of St. Louis."

In this newly created position, Foss will manage a staff of nine charged with media relations, customer communications, marketing and advertising, financial communications, nuclear information and outreach activities. She will report to Richard J. Mark, senior vice president, Missouri Energy Delivery.

"I have known and admired Karen Foss for 25 years -- we got to know each other in the Leadership St. Louis Program, now known as Focus St. Louis," says Mark, who approached Foss about joining AmerenUE the day he heard about her retirement from KSDK. "Karen is a natural leader, a highly experienced communicator and a consummate professional -- enormously intelligent, strategic and focused on communicating messages that will resonate with the public. We are thrilled she will be leading our public relations efforts at AmerenUE."

The six-time Emmy award winner was in 2005 inducted into the Silver Circle by the National Academy of Television, Arts and Sciences for her 25 years of journalistic excellence. Her tenure as an anchor in the 10 p.m. news slot was longer than that of any other female broadcast journalist in the nation. Foss has been honored for her in-depth coverage of such issues as teenage illiteracy, tobacco use, the high cost of political campaigns, hospice care and adoption.

Foss is equally well known for her community contributions. Weekly stories highlighting Karen's Kids helped place hundreds of children in loving homes. Foss has also actively supported a range of organizations from The Salvation Army to Paraquad -- a non-profit dedicated to helping the disabled establish homes and jobs to become more independent.

In 1983, Foss received the "Paraquad Service Award." She also was the first recipient of the St. Louis Ambassadors' "Spirit of St. Louis" award in 1985. The St. Louis Suburban Journals named her "Woman of Achievement" in 1989. Also in 1989, the YMCA honored Foss with the "Special Leadership Award" for her long-standing volunteer commitment to improving the lives of the disabled and youth in St. Louis. In 1992, the St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP honored Foss when she became the first television reporter to receive the "Roy Wilkins Freedom Award."

Foss began her broadcasting career in her early 30s as a film editor at the CBS affiliate in Kansas City -- now KCTV and rose to the anchor position there before joining KSDK-TV in 1979. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, her hometown.

Foss and her husband, Jim Whiteley, are residents of Godfrey, IL. She is a grandmother of three, mother of a son and daughter and stepmother of two children.

AmerenUE is the largest single operating company of St. Louis-based Ameren Corporation with 1.2 million electric and 125,000 natural gas customers in Missouri. Ameren companies serve 2.4 million electric customers and one million natural gas customers in a 64,000-square-mile area of Missouri and Illinois.