TOPEKA – Gov. Jeff Colyer’s office announced Tuesday that communications director Kendall Marr has stepped down and that press secretary Kara Zeyer, formerly Kara Fullmer, will move into that position.

Both Marr and Zeyer joined Colyer’s office in 2017 when Colyer was still lieutenant governor but was preparing to become governor pending U.S. Senate confirmation of Gov. Sam Brownback to a diplomatic position.

Marr had previously worked in the office of Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson. He left Colyer’s office to take the job of communications director for Bob Stefanowski, Republican candidate for governor of Connecticut.

Zeyer grew up the daughter of an Army officer and graduated from Southern Utah University. She came to Topeka in 2003 to work as a news reporter for WIBW-TV. She started in the lieutenant governor’s office as deputy communications director and was promoted to press secretary when Colyer was sworn in as governor in January.

Marr’s resignation was the second major departure from the Colyer administration since he narrowly lost the Aug. 7 Republican primary for governor to Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Earlier, Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism Secretary Robin Jennison announced that he would leave in September to become executive director of the Kansas State Fair. His last day at the agency will be Sept. 22, and he will start his new job Sept. 24, after this year’s state fair closes.

Jennison is a former state representative from Healy who served as speaker of the Kansas House from 1999 to 2000. He took the cabinet position in 2011 at the beginning of the Brownback administration.

He will be replaced by Linda Craghead, currently an assistant secretary in the agency, who will serve as interim secretary.