Five and a half years ago,

a skinny punk entered the offices of The Citizen and begged for a job.

He had just moved back home after spending an extra year in Athens after

graduating from college. He had a journalism degree - in telecommunications

- and had recently been working in the Housewares department of Rich's.

He needed something better, fast, and The Citizen was most certainly better

than selling cookware to people.

The boss gave the kid a chance,

a one-time audition. "Cover this weekend's games and we'll

see how it goes," he said. It must have gone O.K., because the kid

never left. It was rocky at the beginning, mainly because he had never

written sports and the only thing he had to go on was the sports section

of big city papers covering professional teams. There was a pow-wow with

the boss a few weeks later where an important lesson was drummed in quite

well. "This is a community paper and the athletes are high school

athletes. They don't get covered like the Falcons get covered. You

can't be negative." From then on, the sailing was much smoother.

Colleagues began to take the kid under their wings and teach him what

they knew. He was learning something new every day and he began to hit

his stride.

Soon afterward, the kid got

to take over the Weekend beat and he really blossomed. While he was a

sports fan, his true love had always been entertainment. Now he could

cover theater, movies, concerts, festivals, books and local celebrities.

It was more work and more responsibility, but he was ready to prove himself.

It even gave him a chance to write a weekly column and though they were

hit and miss for the first year or two, eventually he found his voice,

albeit an eccentric one. When he wasn't writing about Country Monkeys,

he was filling people in on his life and what it was like to be a Yankee,

growing up and coming into his own, in Fayette County.

The Citizen was his ticket

to all sorts of amazing events and adventures. He met famous people like

Herschel Walker, Speech and Wayne Newton and not so famous people like

a 70-year-old rodeo clown. He got to attend concerts and festivals, free

of charge, and also got to learn how to perform on a trapeze and fire

a gun. It seemed like all he had to do was think of things he wanted to

write about and he could do almost anything or meet almost anyone he wanted.

Sometimes, he would look into the future and try to see himself 10, 20

and 30 years down the line. Would he still be at the paper, connecting

and communicating with the community? It was a murky vision and he began

to wonder, is that really what I want? This query then led to a more important

and much more murky question: what do I want?

He pushed the thoughts to the

back of his mind, got rid of the sports beat after four years, and started

covering some news beats. It was a challenge at first, because the King

of Fluff was now expected to deliver the news to the community. Once he

realized that it just boiled down to covering the meeting so that the

reader felt like he or she was there, there was no problem. Except that

the meetings were often boring and some of the groups meeting had no clear

direction, which made meetings that were already boring and long, seem

even longer and more boring. As frustrated as he was, the young reporter,

no longer a kid but still too fresh-faced to be considered a grizzled

veteran, plugged away.

Until he saw an ad for another

position in town. The new job would be something he knew he could do.

There was a chance for advancement and more doors opening in his future.

It would be like it was when he got the job at The Citizen, where he learned

something new every day and built a reputation from the ground up. It

would mean leaving the comfort of his current job and all of the friendships

he had established in the office and in the community, but it was an exciting

opportunity. He tossed and turned in bed as he mulled it over, trying

to sleep. He listed pros and cons over and over in his head, like counting

sheep. As he finally drifted off, he decided to go for it.

He put in his two weeks, trying

to tie up all loose ends and get his seat ready for his successor and

he wrote his final column. He wanted the column to be a thank you to everyone

who helped him become a good reporter and a solid member of the community.

He had grown significantly, this former skinny punk, and now it was time

to leave and grow again.

Thanks everybody.

I'm out of here.

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