One Iowa State alum is replacing another in a changing of the guard at The Des Moines Register’s Ames Bureau.

Tom O’Donnell, a 1982 ISU graduate, is leaving after eight years as bureau chief. His successor, Jennifer Dukes Lee, is a 1995 ISU grad.

As the only Register reporter covering the Ames area, the responsibilities are many, but O’Donnell said Lee is “a dogged reporter” who will not be intimidated.

“It’s a daunting task to learn all the ins and outs of a place that size. It took me a year,” he said.

“But Jennifer Dukes Lee is going to do a superb job,” O’Donnell said.

“I don’t think I ever really got my finger on the pulse of the place. I don’t think I was ever really able to capture the essence of Iowa State,” he said. “She’ll do that much better than I have.”

Lee, who started in Ames on Sept. 16, did not have to look far for breaking news.

After police raided a methamphetamine lab at University Village on Tuesday, she was on the scene to write what became a front-page story.

“I want to cover what’s important,” she said. “And I also want to find things that will interest all of Iowa.”

Lee worked at the Omaha World-Herald for three years before joining The Register staff.

She was a Daily staff writer during her four years at ISU and was editor in chief for the 1993-94 school year.

As he started his new job in The Register’s Des Moines newsroom, O’Donnell remembered feeling somewhat out of place when he returned to Ames in 1992.

“It had probably been 10 years since I spent any significant amount of time on campus,” he said. “It was strange to me to be trotting the sidewalks of Iowa State as an outsider.”

O’Donnell worked at the Daily, and at other area newspapers before he graduated in 1982 with a degree in journalism and mass communication.

After stints at the Eagle Grove Eagle and the Ottumwa Courier, he signed on with The Register.

Asked about memorable experiences as Ames bureau chief, O’Donnell said, “The most interesting story’s always the last one I worked on.”

More specifically, he mentioned ISU’s fund-raising campaigns and struggles over diversity as issues that have intrigued him.

“It’s been remarkable the degree to which Iowa State has focused on [raising money],” he said.

“It’s been remarkable the degree of success which they’ve had and remarkable that the president of the university spends such a large amount of time on it,” O’Donnell said.

“Iowa State’s not alone in that, but it’s interesting how quickly they got into the game big-time,” he said.

The “money chase” is something Lee already has covered.

A story she wrote for Sunday’s Register noted that ISU had raised its five-year “Campaign Destiny” goal from $300 million to $425 million, thanks to an abundance of generous donors.

“Another overriding issue that’s been very interesting to follow is Iowa State wrestling with racial and ethnic diversity,” O’Donnell said.

When the state Board of Regents set minority-student enrollment goals about five years ago, ISU was forced to recruit from urban centers outside Iowa.

“The result has been that you have more minorities, but you have a different kind of minority, and specifically African-Americans, who are more inclined to raise their voice against perceived injustices,” he said. “The university is still struggling with how to cope with that, how to make them feel at home.”

In the past, minorities at ISU have come to college after growing up in cities predominantly populated by whites, O’Donnell said.

“Growing up in Iowa, they kind of, unfortunately, grew used to the kinds of undeserved slights that some of the African-American students from outside the state were not willing to sit by silently and endure,” he said.

These issues — and more — will confront O’Donnell’s replacement, but Lee is eager to get started.

“It was a one-man show, and now it’s a one-woman show,” she said confidently.