Stephen George, editor of LEO Weekly, is leaving the position to become editor of the Nashville City Paper. The new job begins Jan. 11, 2010.

George, a Louisville native, has been with LEO Weekly since January 2005. During that time he has served as staff writer, music editor, city editor, managing editor and editor, a post he took over in May 2008.

“It has been a distinct honor to be able to write and report about my hometown on the unique and vital platform LEO Weekly offers, and part of me is sad to walk away,” George said. “At the same time, I am excited to join the well-established team at the Nashville City Paper, which covers the city’s news, business, sports and entertainment with the kind of energy and vigor to which I’ve become accustomed.”

The Nashville City Paper is owned by SouthComm, which purchased LEO Weekly in May 2008.

Sarah Kelley, who has served as LEO Weekly’s news editor since May 2008, will become editor of the newsweekly Jan. 1. Kelley, also a Louisville native, has worked as a reporter and city editor at The Journal Newspapers, a reporter at the Washington, D.C.-based Washington Examiner and The Legal Times, and as a staff writer at The Nashville Scene.

“I am thrilled with the opportunity to serve as editor of LEO Weekly and to maintain the paper’s longstanding reputation as an invaluable source for local news, informed commentary and arts coverage,” Kelley said. “This publication has been an institution in Louisville for two decades, and I am looking forward to building on that tradition.”

Kelley will be the first female editor of LEO Weekly.

The alternative newsweekly has also hired Jonathan Meador as a staff writer. Meador, a Louisville native, has contributed extensively to the newsweekly’s print and web editions for the past year.

LEO Weekly was established by John Yarmuth in 1990. Yarmuth, now a U.S. representative, sold the newsweekly in 2003.