A New Beginning!: My Life as a News Guy

     Typically in this spot, I share advice, or wax poetic about things I've experienced over the years.

     This time is different.  If I'm going to offer words of wisdom to others:  I should also share my heart, my jitters, and the real life feelings I have as I embark on an exciting new chapter in life.  We all have feelings-hopefully they don't show up on the screen, but we all have them.  They're natural and they're good and they're part of this great business.

     Tomorrow (September 8th),  I start my new job as an Evening Co-Anchor/Reporter at Black Hills Fox (KEVN TV) in Rapid City, SD.  It's beautiful here...amazingly so!  I'm thrilled.  I'm thankful.  I'm excited.  And while I've been blessed to start new jobs plenty of times at new stations throughout my career:  There's still the butterflies--and they're twittering right now.

     I remember a few months ago when my friend, WHBF TV Sports Director Jay Kidwell and I walked out to our cars after the late show in the Quad Cities of Illinois and Iowa:  we had learned my time at the station would be coming to a close at some point as part of a major and impressive makeover at the station under new ownership.   He said something like, "Let's take a look back in a year",  and he encouraged me that I would be in a great happy place.  It was a cool, late Winter/early Spring night: and I knew he was right.  I had no idea where I would end up, but I knew it would work out. 

     So here I am.  It's a place more scenic and majestic than I could have ever imagined at the foot of the Mountains, and on the edge of the Black Hills National Forest.  I learned this weekend at a tourist place, that it's named the Black Hills because the prevalent native tree here, the Ponderosa Pine has such deep green needles, that from a distance it looks black.

     This is the West part of the Midwest.  This was a gold rush region.  It was a place people came to seek fresh beginnings, and where I find mine as well. 

     It's a small city: which I love.  I've never really craved big markets-although, I would have gone if they came calling.  But in my heart, I've always been a guy that likes folksy type places.  I love characters.  I love history.  And I love meeting everyday people who have amazing stories of where they've been, what they've done, seen, or experienced: and sharing their inspirational stories.  Big names have never really wowed me: local folks have.

     I started in this business with typewriters and paper printing off the AP wire machine.  A lot has changed.  I took a few years off back in the 90's but always missed the business and was blessed to re-join the TV journalism ranks in 1997- and have been savoring every moment since.   The platforms for delivering our product are ever changing from web sites, mobile devices, and social media.  But the principles of what we do remain the same.

     I'm as passionate about this business as the Ponderosa Pines are deep green.   Everybody has childhood dreams.  TV journalism was mine.  And so my dream lives on.  A new chapter is about to begin.

     I'm about to join a new team, in a new city: and I'm so doggone excited, thankful, and nervous.  I want to be a great teammate.  I'm excited to plug into the community.  I hope in some small way I can make a difference here, at my station, in my new community.

     But for now, I'm the new guy again.

     And I'm thankful to be here.