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Hello, Putnam County; it's great to be here
I wanted to take the opportunity today to introduce myself to you as I finish my third week as the sports editor of your newspaper.
I am a native of Terre Haute, and I have graduated from Indiana State (twice) besides earning a master's degree from Olivet Nazarene.
My wife and I live in northern Vigo County with our five dogs. She is a science teacher at Riverton Parke Jr.-Sr. High School.
I taught for 15 years at North Vermillion, North Central and Northview after having worked at the Terre Haute Tribune-Star for approximately 15 years in both full-time and part-time capacities.
I also have a good feel for smalltown daily newspapers, having been the sports editor of the Greensburg Daily News for three and-a-half years in the mid-1980s.
I was thrilled when I learned of his opportunitiy last month, and I have been pleased with the reception I have received from the people I have met.
There are obviously many more people whose paths I have not yet crossed, but we will get acquainted eventually and it will be all downhill from there.
As you should have observed to this point, my goal is to fill each edition's sports section with as much local copy every day as possible.
I feel I have done that well to this point, especially considering my number of local contacts is still small at this point.
Several people have sent in story ideas, and those have been much appreciated. Please keep 'em coming.
My goal is to get every coach from every sport at all four county schools to submit all game reports.
Whether that happens is up to those individuals, but my hope is that everyone realizes that any past problems you may have had getting your information published will no longer exist as we start this journey together anew.
One good thing about my situation is that I have no pre-conceived biases or favoritism toward any school.
I know people who have played, taught, or coached at all four schools, but not a great number. I look forward to those connections increasing and getting around to meet as many people as possible.
I will work hard to bring you the best stories I can find out about.
I have been pleased with my work so far, and being able to bring you the stories of new North Putnam girls' basketball coach Jarrod Duff, Butler track standouts Colleen Weatherford of Greencastle and Ariel Higgins of South Putnam and the successes of Cloverdale's Claudia Monnett at DePauw among many other things.
The College Report is my special child, as I wrote about a couple of weeks ago, and I will look forward to bringing it to you every week.
Sometimes, like in Friday's newspaper, the outstanding accomnplishments of athletes like Rhodes College golfer Alec Davis of Greencastle and Vincennnes University hurdling standout Klayton Vittetow of South Putnam will find their way into the paper sooner than the next Monday's College Report due to their news value and timeliness.
We will be keeping you up to date on PGA golfer Chad Collins, and this summer will be contacting him for a recap of his career to date.
Of the teams I am acquainted with, it will be great to also follow the successes of the Cloverdale boys' basketball team next winter among others.
I have known coach Patrick Rady since he was a youngster playing basketball at the Terre Haute Boys Club, and it has been great to watch his coaching career evolve into what should be an incredibly fun season for him and the Clover fan base.
You won't get any stories about what Cooper Neese has for breakfast on any certain day, but understandably there will be some space devoted to him and his accomplishments as one of the top athletes in the state in his sport.
Hopefully as time goes by there will be others to take his place and equal or surpass his successes.
With the many great freshmen I have already come across so far -- especially in cross country and track -- it appears local success will have no trouble continuing.
And it's a lot more fun that way.