My second-grade teacher, Mrs. O' Brien, told my parents I was going to be a writer. She died long before I figured out that she was right.
There was a girl in my elementary school graduating class -- St. Raymond's Class of 1980 -- named Rita DiSalvo. She insisted that she could see my future -- "I see you sitting down in front of a typewriter working on a novel," she said one night, right before we graduated, at an event at our school's gym.
Both were completely wrong, but quintessentially right. Mrs. Enright was wrong, but only because she meant poet when she said writer. Rita was wrong because, while I've used typewriters, the thing I sit at and write on is a computer.
But yeah, I'm a writer.
As a freshman in high school, I got put in Mrs. Suzy Taylor's English class. Each week, we had to write something for her. She'd put a phrase up on the blackboard at the beginning of the week, and our assignment had to be somehow related to that phrase.
One I remember was "How to take care of a pet alligator."
Great assignment in and of itself, but I wrote something about a detective working for the Alligator Insurance Co., tracking down suspicious claims with their P.E.T. policies. Ended up with some kind of Third World dictator trying to take over the world.
I think that was the one that convinced her I should be a writer, and I think that's the one that convinced me as well. She told me to try out for the school newspaper.
The rest is my history.
I have worked for these newspapers or outlets over the years --
The Cavalier at Dorman High School,
The Gamecock at the University of South Carolina,
The State (as a correspondent)
The Associated Press (as a sports correspondent)
The Herald-Journal of Spartanburg (as a correspondent)
The Union Daily Times (as an intern/reporter) and:
The Lancaster News (as a sports intern).
Then I graduated. Since then I have worked at the following publications --
The Shelby Star (first full-time job after graduation, as a copy editor)
Edge, which later merged with Creative Loafing (as a sci-fi columnist)
The New Catholic Miscellany (as a correspondent)
The Fort Lauderdale Times (on one story as a correspondent)
The Horry Independent (covering a federal trial, as a temporary reporter)
The Cheraw Chronicle
The People-Sentinel and The Allendale County Citizen Leader
The last two were my most extensive billets. I worked there more than six years, starting out as the news editor, but my last two years as the managing editor. When I left, they were the best two weekly newspapers in South Carolina. The Citizen Leader isn't there anymore.
A shame.
I briefly worked at The Independent Tribune in Concord/Kannapolis as its copy desk chief after leaving Barnwell and Allendale to get married.
I then moved on to five years with The News & Reporter in Chester. I had a month or so as interim editor, about a year as news editor (reporter) then four years as its editor.
It's a twice weekly. I had loads of fun at the Chester paper, beating local dailies, which said they cover the county, pretty handily.
Too bad they don't have awards just for scoops, because Chester was scoop central for me while I was there.
After six years, I moved on to try my hand full-time at a daily. I became a copy editor and page designer at the Consolidated Editing Center in Hickory, N.C. My last assignment was creating pages and read sports stories for the Dothan Eagle in Dothan, Ala.
I also did a lot of work, in both news and sports, for the Morning News of Florence, S.C., and its affiliated weeklies. The center handles papers from North Carolina and Florida as well. I occasionally caught some of those papers depending on day-to-day staffing issues.
After 10 years there, I left and joined the Center for News & Design, which is Gatehouse Newspapers' design shop. I do the same thing I did in Hickory, but I work from home. I don't know why BH Media didn't do this, but it's costing them people.
Since 1997, I've been a contest judge and have served more than one stint on the S.C. Press Association's Contest Committee.
I've won some awards since becoming a professional. You can click on some links in the Awards article and read some of the award-winning things, and look at some award-winning pictures. Those are mostly older ones. I have linked to some more recent works I enjoyed producing elsewhere in the blog.
You might read all this and think, wow, he's an arrogant one.
I'm proud of my profession and the work it has allowed me to do over the years.
