Blue Highways Journal

Gene Roberts, left, accepts the North Carolinian of the Year award from NCPA President Tim Dearman of Statesville Friday in Asheville. (Photo by Jock Lauterer)

Everyone needs a hero. Gene Roberts is mine.

Arguably the most decorated living Tar Heel journalist, the 75-year-old Roberts started small before becoming a national figure.

But even when he reached the top, he never turned into what my mama used to call “Mr. Big Britches,” — never forgetting or denigrating his humble Eastern North Carolina journalism origins; and that’s one of the many reasons why I honor him so.

To my great delight, I’m not the only one. The North Carolina Press Association named Roberts its 2008 “North Carolinian of the Year” at their annual summer convention in Asheville on Friday, July 18.
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June 24, 2008

State Port Pilot staffers assemble for a group portrait in their skylighted entrance atrium: clockwise, from front and lower step, Colin Campbell, writing intern from UNC-CH; Lisa Stites, staff writer; Jonathan Spiers, staff writer; Lee Hinnant, news editor; Ben Brown, staff writer; Suzi Drake, features editor; Ed Harper, editor and Hilary Snow, staff writer. Not pictured, Bret McCormick, sports editor, Jim Harper, photographer and Terry Pope, associate editor. (Photo by Jock Lauterer)

In a day and age when we hear so much doom and gloom about the newspaper industry, it’s a pure pleasure for this old newsie to hit the road each summer to lead workshops at quality, thriving community newspapers.

Maybe you’ve been reading about the buyouts, layoffs and shrinking news hole at McClatchy-owned papers and could use a dose of optimism.

To do that, you might want to take to the “blue highways,” where all-local community papers, including small dailies but especially independently owned weeklies, are holding their own, and then some.

For starters, I wish I could pack the whole glum bunch of professional media funeral mourners into my car and take them to the State Port Pilot of Southport.

The gold standard.

That’s what I call The State Port Pilot. This profitable, innovative, growing, family-owned broadsheet weekly consistently wins annual state press awards for news and advertising by the boatloads.

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A visit to the LNT at LKN

6/04/08

If you want to know how much Mooresville, N.C., has changed in a mere decade, just ask Bill Kiser, editor of the Lake Norman Times.

You can go home again -- and get fries with that! Lake Norman Times Editor Bill Kiser, left, is joined by, left to right, LNT staffer Dru Willis, News of Orange Editor Steve Stiner and LNT staff Lacey Hampton outside "Indigo Joe's," a sports bar located exactly where Bill's childhood home once stood in Mooresville. (Photo by Jock Lauterer)

We are having lunch at “Indigo Joe’s,” a hip new sports bar with enough wall-mounted TV sets to keep any sports junkie glassy-eyed.

“My parents’ house was sitting right here,” Bill says matter-of-factly. My bedroom was…about right over there,” he says, turning and motioning towards an adjoining room.

Surrounding our lunch spot, (AKA, Bill’s old homeplace) sprawls Mooresville, revered by NASCAR fans as “Race City, USA.” We are surrounded by malls, fast-food places, shopping centers, apartments, condos, gated communities with generic names, office parks and the sameness of the predictable franchises you see lining four-lanes of Anywhere, USA.

And what is so striking about all this growth, is how NEW it all appears.

“It is new,” Bill agrees, pointing out the window. “That used to be woods. That used to be pasture. None of this was here 10 years ago.”

A native of this burgeoning southern Iredell County region, Bill says his parents watched the economic building boom happening and waited until they got an offer they couldn’t refuse. Then his mom and dad, like many others, moved somewhere else more rural. The way southern Iredell used to be. Before the lake and before the interstate changed everything forever. “It’s hard to find a real native (of Mooresville). They’re selling and moving to Rowan County,” he says.
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Jock Lauterer is the NNA’s newly-appointed grand poobah of community journalism, but the title he really likes is “guy.” Jock is also the director of the Carolina Community Media Project at the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he teaches, among other things, community journalism. A former community newspaper editor-publisher, he is also the author of the leading text on the subject, “Community Journalism: Relentlessly Local” UNC Press 3rd. ed. 2006. Contact him at jock@email.unc.edu

For each of the last eight summers, Jock has led workshops at smaller papers across his state. Here is his first blog post from this summer’s Community Journalism Summer Roadshow.

by Jock Lauterer
NNA’S Community Journalism Guy

Cool.

That word kept cropping up during my Roadshow visit to the Shelby Star earlier this week.

And while “cool” may not be a word most folks associate with newspapers, but it sure applies to the Star.

For the Star is no ordinary community paper. In fact, it may be one of a kind, and an industry leader too.

Ouch! The Star's video camera turns on the ol' perfesser. My workshop to the Star was headlined "Community News Pioneer Visits." So I'm a "pioneer" now! (Photo by Jock Lauterer)

Since 2006, the 15,000-circulation Freedom-owned daily in the foothills about one hour west of Charlotte, N.C., has fused the print edition with the paper’s Web version, shelbystar.com, in every way conceivable.

And frankly, when I visited last earlier this week, the newsroom had more of the feel, energy and go-go-get-this-up-now of a 24/7 broadcast station.

“The Shelby Star was blown up its newsroom - figuratively,” explains a release from the Southern Newspaper Publisher’s Association. “The paper’s newsroom no longer operates like a traditional newsroom and the newspaper doesn’t read like a traditional newspaper. It’s more local. Easier to read. Easier to digest (no jumps!) More interactive. And it fuses with the paper’s Web site.

“Reporters now consistently work to find every opportunity to enhance a story with online content (usually video). Staff photographers and reporters carry video cameras (usually the inexpensive and simple to use Flip) on assignments. Editors encourage the community to submit comments, photos and video. The newsroom has added an Web master and a Web-savvy managing editor (Joy Scott, the Star’s award-winning former investigative writer) and Web content increasing has fused with the print product.”

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Gregg Found on publishing in the real world:
It was nice to know that the reporting you were doing wasn’t just for practice. It was for real. And I think that challenged and pushed all of us a little bit. When we knew our story had a good shot at making the front page of the next week’s Spring Hope Enterprise, we wanted to make sure we turned out a good product. And when we did, it felt great.

Sam Giffin on how small Spring Hope was:
Spring Hope is small.  It is very small.  I remember the first time the bucket brigade was traveling to the office of the Spring Hope Enterprise we nearly drove straight through town.  Some people driving alone did simply drive straight through probably thinking, “Was that it?”

Cody Braun on smallness and authenticity:
In Spring Hope, many things are clearly the way they have been for at least a generation or two. While many people were busy being alarmed by the diminutive size of the Enterprise office on the first trip to Spring Hope, I was admiring the icehouse that still stands out front, where in Carrboro there might be a piece of avant-garde metalwork.

Nothing sums up the differences between two towns like the way people eat, and this is certainly true of Spring Hope and Carrboro. One blue team reporter went to Spring Hope and asked the town hall receptionist where to get some chow, expecting to get a long list of options. Instead, he found out about “the” restaurant, Showside. In downtown Carrboro, it is hard to walk twenty feet without finding another international culinary option. On the other hand, you would be less likely to get your interview completely by accident in Carrboro. After a solid morning and afternoon of searching for a source one Friday, we decided to call it quits, get lunch and head home. Not only did half the people in Showside recognize and thank us, but who should walk in halfway through the meal but the missing sheriff we had searched all morning for. The odds of running into any particular person at any single restaurant in Carrboro are pretty slim.

Cameron Weaver comparing Spring Hope with Carrboro:
The communities of Spring Hope and Carrboro gave me very different vibes upon entering each. Spring Hope is a type of “If you blink, you’ll miss it” town. It’s so small that my first thought was a bit judgmental and condescending because I thought there might not be too much going on in a town that size. I used to complain about the lack of things to do in Winston-Salem, but my first impression of Spring Hope made me feel like I was raised in New York City.

I accidentally drove right past Spring Hope on my first visit there, and I didn’t even realize it until I stopped and asked someone. Ken Ripley had specifically told me that the library was in the center of town in a former train depot, and I recall him saying, “You can’t miss it.” Well, I’m not sure I’ve ever really been in a town as small as Spring Hope, aside from driving through small towns on the way to the beach, and I completely missed the entire town.

Marianna King on parachute journalism:
Parachute journalism isn’t generally a positive term. It implies that a reporter cares little about the place he’s landed. It implies that a reporter couldn’t possibly cover that community with thoughtfulness or passion. I hope that our class has challenged the negativity of the term for the readers in Carrboro and Spring Hope. We had fun – it would be hard to have fun in a place you don’t care about. Dean Byers asked me about the future of the Bucket Brigade during the Brunswick stew. When I told him we were just a temporary aid to the Enterprise during the few months that Ripley recovered, he said that he knew we would be missed and that our stories helped the community re-experience the ordinary.

Kendal Walters on the challenges of being a parachute journalist:
A contrast between interviewing in Spring Hope and Carrboro was that I had a harder time connecting with people in Spring Hope because of cultural differences.  The fact was I had never been to Spring Hope before those three trips, and so I didn’t know about the traditions or what was common knowledge there.  For example, contestants at the pumpkin recipe contest looked at me like I was crazy when I wasn’t familiar with what a pumpkin jack was (I soon discovered it is like a turnover).  I also didn’t know the basics of the geographic area, such as nearby towns, so when someone said they were from a particular place I had to expose myself even more as an outsider by asking where exactly that place was located.  At first this was uncomfortable for me, but in some cases it was advantageous to play dumb or ‘be dumb’ because interviewees explained things that would have been taken for granted by other reporters.

With an outsider writing a story, there is a certain potential to add a different angle if that person can recognize things not apparent to community members who have grown up in the environment.  At the same time, there are inherent challenges in being a parachute journalist, like not being familiar with the local community or important sources.  Luckily our difficulties parachuting into the Enterprise were mediated by a staff that knew a lot about the community and provided us with invaluable support and information.

Kate Newnam on working hard and playing hard:
When I found out my story had made the front page, I was surprised to find myself so ecstatic about it.  Yes, it was a small town paper, but I had a front page article that I could put into my clips file.  That sense of excitement spurred me into reaching for another one with my next story.  I got some help with my quest from Kendall when she told me about the Veterans’ Day brunch the sixth graders at Southern Nash Middle School were holding to honor the veterans of the Nashville American Legion and others they had invited as well.  My dad is a Gulf War veteran, so the thought of hearing the stories of these men immediately struck me as an interesting assignment.

The Veterans’ Day brunch ended up being the best journalism experience I have had since I started writing as a sophomore in high school.  I spent a Friday morning talking with veterans from wars of the past fifty years and could not have had more fun.

Kate Newnam on being recognized:
As I was wrapping up my interviewing and getting ready to leave the brunch, a teacher noticed me holding my notebook while chatting with Joe and recognized me as one of the “bucket brigaders.”  He immediately went off searching for one of his students who had been interested in getting into journalism and was fascinated with the idea of us coming to write for her town newspaper.  Since the last visit had been the Blue Team’s introduction to the area and no one knew who we were, I was quite taken aback to be talking to someone who had recognized me from the paper and knew all about what I was doing in town.

Cody Braun comparing the Enterprise with the Carrboro Commons and the Citizen:
The offices of the two publications make their differences as clear as day. The Carrboro Commons is written on wireless laptops all around town and edited in a state of the art classroom, which is probably slightly larger than the Enterprise office. Stepping into the Enterprise feels a little bit like going back in time at least a decade. The wood paneling is covered with years and years worth of awards and plaques, and the whole place smells and feels exactly like one would hope that small town news paper office would. The carpet is worn from ages of use and stacks of newspapers cover every surface. The environment is very warm and welcoming, and people on the street seem to have no problem with coming in and giving the staff a piece of their mind. The first day I went to Spring Hope, we were caught in the cold, pouring rain, and nothing was nicer than camping out in the Enterprise office, editing, chatting with old Joe, eating some barbeque and just listening to the rain come down. An important part of any community paper’s physical location is that it is accessible to its community; one of the biggest concerns the staff of the Carrboro Citizen said that they had was getting a storefront location where people could come in a give them feedback, and the Enterprise has established this nicely. It is important to have a finger on the pulse of your community and not be off in an ivory tower far from readers. This is the only way to gain feedback, find stories, gain access and generally find out how well the paper is doing its job.

Cameron Weaver on why this mattered, academically:
In both communities I felt a huge sense of accountability that honestly I’d never truly understood before. Certainly I want to be fair and accurate in my reporting stories for other classes as well, but I felt much stronger about that in this experience. I knew that my story subjects not only read their local paper but would especially seek it out after being interviewed for it. The chance of publication in the subjects’ own newspapers almost made me nervous because I wanted to be 100% sure I believed in every single word I wrote. I felt such a different level of responsibility and liability once my assignments were submitted to legitimate newspapers, not simply to one professor who gives it a grade and hands it back to me.

Overall, I had quite a learning experience in both places. Spring Hope felt so foreign to me, but Carrboro was surprisingly challenging as well, despite its proximity. No matter which community I covered, I learned some overarching qualities of community journalism. I met people in both communities who were very willing to talk to me and who treated me with dignity. I also learned the value of advance homework because I got stuck in a rut once in each town. Most of all, I now understand the importance of talking to others as human beings, not merely as interview subjects. I discovered the importance of getting to know others and sincerely listening to their stories and allowing them the chance to share their thoughts. My strongest stories came from the times when I allowed the conversations to veer totally off-track into topics I hadn’t planned on. Whether covering a quirky, artsy, liberal community or a laid-back, traditional, tight-knit community, I think that respect and accountability are the essential qualities for success.

Kendal Walters on humility and non-elitism:
My biggest learning experience with either of the newspapers was the story I did on Southern Nash High School’s agricultural education department.  I got to practice the seemingly impossible skill of actively interviewing, taking notes, and taking pictures all at the same time.

Something else I learned from the agricultural education story was a textbook lesson– to never go into a story looking down condescendingly, albeit subconsciously, on small town people or small town life.  I heard the words agricultural education, and being from a city I had a certain set of expectations.  When I actually got into the experience of interviewing and seeing the unique elements of the program, my expectations were turned upside down.  I was extremely impressed and surprised to find a high school with such a well-developed curriculum and extensive resources in a unique subject area.  I also realized one of my favorite parts of journalism is the personal growth that you, as a journalist, are able to gain by learning about and being exposed to new situations and topics.

Sam Giffin on doing practical journalism for real:
I had some news and editorial experience from high school and relatively disorganized campus groups but nothing like what this semester turned out to be.  It has been foremost, the experience of a lifetime.   This is one of the few classes that I am sure I will remember long after I have a new career because what I learned this semester can be attributed to real life.  No matter where I am.

You know how you feel day’s end, walking out of the paper office, exhausted but happy, knowing you’ve put out the best paper you could have possibly produced?

That’s the way I’m feeling at the conclusion of the first “Bucket Brigade,” the J-School’s rapid-response emergency journalism team mission to a paper in crisis.

This fall my UNC Community Journalism class helped veteran publisher Ken Ripley at the Spring Hope Enterprise, while Ripley endured a double hip replacement.

I’m happy to report that Ripley is doing great – and that we didn’t get him sued.

Credit the editor of the Kiowa County (Kansas) Signal for the inspiration. Perhaps you, too, saw this on CNN last May: With his tornado-devastated town of Greensburg flattened behind him, he said what any good community journalist would say: “I don’t know how I’m going do it, but I’m going to put out a paper for this town next week.”

That sort of quiet heroism of everyday journalism was what my students witnessed in little (pop 1,281) Spring Hope, where Ripley never missed a beat, making sure his independent 10-14 page weekly hit the streets as usual, even though twice he put the Enterprise together via laptop from his hospital bed!

So before I began tooting horns, understand Ripley is the hero in this story; my students and I are just supporting cast members.

Oh sure, we helped fill the paper with content Ripley’s two-man staff might not have gotten to, but the Bucket Brigade went both ways. Mark my words: My kids learned more than they gave.

As “parachute journalists,” my mostly urban students had a total immersion in “North Carolina 101,” doing stories on such topics as the annual fall Pumpkin Festival, the growth of the high school’s agricultural education program, the four women volunteer firefighters, the Ruritan Club’s chicken barbecue, or the opening of a Hispanic beauty salon.

And what did the kids get out of it? Some of them want to go back, for no class credit — as volunteers!

I’ve died and gone to heaven.

Enterprise Page 1

The Bucket Brigade at mid-point:
Young journalists find that Small is Beautiful in Spring Hope
By Jock Lauterer
lecturer

Galloping across the back of my favorite old T-shirt, a cigar-chomping cartoon black crow charges an unseen foe, armed only with a giant pencil that Sir Crow carries like a Knight of the Round Table wielding a jousting lance.

Shu

The cartoon crow, drawn so artfully by the late Jeff MacNelly, is a caricature of my mentor, the legendary Chapel Hill News editor and UNC J-School professor, James T. “Shu” Shumaker, who, by his example, taught me and legions of other young reporters that concerned community journalists had a moral imperative to stand up on their hind legs and fight for what they thought was right and worth saving.

So I’m sure Shu would approve of the “Bucket Brigade,” our rapid-response emergency community journalism team to the Spring Hope Enterprise this fall while long-time pal and veteran editor-publisher Ken Ripley UNC-JOMC ‘72) is undergoing double hip replacement.

Kendal Walters

For the last six weeks, the dozen students from the JOMC 459 Community Journalism class at the J-School have been cranking out stories and photos from southern Nash County to help fill the pages of the Spring Hope Enterprise.

The welfare of one of the state’s 192 small newspapers matters because all-local newspapers like the Enterprise (circ. 2,500) are what I call the heartbeat of American journalism. And it’s important to realize that 97 percent of all American newspapers are classified as “small.” So there’s nothing small about helping out at a small paper.

Along the way my kids have discovered the truth of the old expression “Small is beautiful” — and that a lot of good stories can be found in very small places. A sampling of their work:

Kendal Walters, a senior journalism major from Charlotte, did a story on the Ag Education program at Southern Nash High School. With 400-plus kids involved, it’s the largest one of its kind in the state.

Emily Burns

Sam Giffin, a sophomore from the DC suburbs, reported on the rebuilding efforts of a local church gutted by fire two years ago. The preacher told Sam that before the final walls and floors went in, parishioners used Sharpies to write their favorite Bible verses on the beams and joists.

Senior Emily Burns, a senior from (in her words: “well, nowhere”) interviewed elderly residents of Bailey for a piece on the town’s centennial, (and found her way home after getting lost at night on one of her runs to Spring Hope).

Cameron Weaver, a junior from Winston-Salem, wrote a story about two Mexican sisters who have started a beauty salon in Spring Hope that caters especially to the local Latina population.

Sam Giffin

Jon Sullivan, a junior from Sarasota, Fla., lucked out when he was assigned to cover the semi-annual Momeyer Ruritan Club chicken barbecue. I ordered take-out for everyone, and back at the Enterprise office, we got down and greasy.

Cody Braun, a Durham senior and our Spanish-speaking writer, used his talents when reporting on the ESL classes in Spring Hope.

Gregg Found, a senior from Iowa, wrote a commentary for the editorial page describing his first impressions of little (pop. 1,281) Spring Hope.

Laura Davenport, a junior from Fayetteville, found out that in spite of the Iraq war, the immensely popular ROTC program at the local high school has a large enrollment. Kids say they join for character-building, fellowship and camaraderie, and that few go on and actually enlist in the armed forces. Go figure.

Marianna King, a junior from Greenville, did a wonderful personality profile featuring the four women firefighters serving with the Spring Hope Volunteer Fire Department.

Kate Newnam, a senior from Lexington, Ky., did a story on a local migrant labor child daycare center where the local postmaster made a presentation about a new stamp which commemorates Latinos’ role in the civil rights battle for equal rights and school integration.

Elyse Archer, a senior from Raleigh, interviewed the new Pumpkin Queen (from the annual Pumpkin Festival) and

Rob Matteson

discovered that new queen’s MOM was the Pumpkin Queen 23 years ago – back in 1984. Talk about the acorn not falling far from the tree.

And one of my real heroes of the Bucket Brigade, Robert Matteson a Durham senior, isn’t even a member of the class.

Rob, a co-editor of the Carrboro Commons last spring, has volunteered as a photographer on every roadtrip to Spring Hope this fall. Not for class credit, but simply because he wants to do journalism that makes a difference.

Talk about the moral imperative.

I bet Shu would be applauding.

Bucket Brigade in Spring Hope

The construction of a new town hall; plans for the annual autumn Pumpkin Festival; the dedication of a rebuilt country church following a devastating fire; the semi-annual Ruritan Club chicken barbecue — hardly the breathless “this-just-in” breaking news of CNN — but to the folks of the Spring Hope Enterprise, this is the stuff of next week’s front page.

My students and I know this firsthand because we are the reporters and photographers covering these seemingly ordinary events in the little town of Spring Hope (1,281) one hour east of here.

How did a band of UNC-Chapel Hill journalism students find themselves last week in what some would call “the middle of nowhere?”

Therein lies the tale.

THE BACK STORY
Remember the horrendous tornado of early May that leveled the little down of Greensburg, Kansas? I was sitting in front of my TV when I heard the editor of the Kiowa County Signal, standing there amid the rubble of his town, say practically in tears: I don’t know how I’m gonna do it, but I’m gonna put a paper out next week.

I jumped right out of my chair and hollered: I need to be out there helping that guy! While I was figuring out how I could change all my summer plans and catch a flight to Kansas, I realized: Hold on, Kansas is not my turf.

So I buzzed my professor pals at Kansas State and the University of Kansas to see if they were springing into action. No, they hadn’t done anything yet, but I was assured they’d get right on it.

Then it occurred to me: Hey Lauterer, what would YOU do if an North Carolina community paper took a direct hit from a hurricane? How prepared are you? Do you have a Rapid Response Journalism Team primed and ready?

“Wull….no, not exactly…” I had to admit. And then the wheels starting turning. “But maybe if I get off my duff and start planning….”

WHY IT MATTERS
As the author of the book, “Community Journalism: Relentlessly Local,” I’ve learned how vital community newspapers are to the maintenance of local civic life. I’ve seen it all too often: Towns without enlightened community papers are simply handicapped. Not surprisingly, strong papers are usually found in strong communities.

I’ve also witnessed how community papers serve their communities, particularly in times of crisis — most recently, the hundreds of Gulf Coast small local papers that not only survived Katrina/Rita, but kept publishing, saying to their towns and the world in general, “We’re Still Here!”

This heroism of everyday community journalism goes largely unheralded. Only when a little paper wins a Pulitzer does the world sit up and take notice. And that’s fine; community papers aren’t in the PR business. They’re in the business of serving their communities, pure and simple.

COMING FULL CIRCLE

Ken Ripley and the Bucket Brigade

So shouldn’t it be the business also of the local colleges and universities to serve their communities too? Doggone right. And the notion ain’t exactly mine. UNC’s legendary WW I-era president, Edward Kidder Graham, preached that the campus of this great university should be “coterminous” with the borders of the state.

That is: the whole state is our campus!

Within a week of the Greensburg, Kansas, tornado I had fleshed out a plan for how a community journalism “bucket brigade” could come to the aid of a Down East community newspaper in crisis. But then my thinking took another turn.

Why sit around and wait for disaster to strike? Find a community paper right now that needs help.

And that led us to Spring Hope, where I knew my long-time pal and veteran editor and publisher, Ken Ripley, was going in this month for a double hip replacement, a process that will require two separate operations and a lengthy recovery at home. Knowing the unstoppable Mr. Ripley, he refuses to miss an issue, putting out his paper via laptop from his bedside.

So how cool would it be for a UNC journalism class to form a “bucket brigade” over to Spring Hope to help provide content for Ripley’s beleaguered Enterprise?

As it turns out, it’s not just cool; it’s fun and productive. And if our first week is any indicator, the Bucket Brigade is also an invaluable learning experience.

Bucket Brigade

As I watched my student reporters fanning out across town to do their stories and take their pictures, I became convinced they were learning far more than just lessons in journalism. Perhaps some of them were already realizing that “the middle of nowhere” is the center of someone else’s universe.

Jock Lauterer teaches community journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill where he can be reached at jock@email.unc.edu or 919-962-6421.

A SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY
Thursday, July 19, 2007

Heading north out of Elkin on 21, I found myself singing the old Elizabeth Cotton verse, from the song “Freight Train,” that goes something like this: “One more thing I’d like to see…watch that old Blue Ridge Mountain rise as I ride old Number Nine…”

Jock Lauterer

For as you drive west in North Carolina, you will encounter what geologists call “the Blue Ridge Front” jutting abruptly out of the rolling Piedmont. Not as spectacular as the Front Range of the Rockies, the Tar Heel green ramparts are nonetheless a dramatic sight that never fails to stir me. When you top the Eastern Continental Divide at 2,972 at Roaring Gap, you know you’re “up the mountain.”

“Sparty,” as the old-timers used to say the name of their little (pop: 1,983) mountain hometown, was once my town too. Could it actually have been 39 years ago that I was the one-man show here at the eight-page, hot-type, buttugly weekly Alleghany News?

The paper office used to perch curiously at the edge of the courthouse lawn, like the watchdog it never was, in a 14×14 one-room brick building heated by a single, smelly kerosene stove.

Like the office, resources were few. Luckily, I had my own camera and typewriter. But I was happy, 23 and full of spit and vinegar, ready to try my hand at running what I supposed was “my” newspaper. Had I not been Big Man on Campus with the Daily Tar Heel? How difficult could it be to put out a little mountain weekly?

Man, was I in for rude awakening, courtesy of “Miz Anderson,” the legendary, curmudgeonly, autocratic, red-headed owner/publisher of “my” newspaper, which was printed at “her” newspaper, the Skyland Post, an hour across the mountains in West Jefferson.

We disagreed on practically everything there was to disagree on, from newspaper content to the size of the photographs, even to my hair, if you can imagine that — for at the time I did wear it shaggy.

That our relationship was volatile is to put it mildly. “Big Stella,” as she was known, and I held hollering matches across her newsroom every press day.

Within four months of coming to Sparta, I was already plotting my own start-up. In an odd sort of way, I probably owe my successful entrepreneurial newspaper career to the prickly old Miz Anderson.

So, what a place to return to…my first time in 39 years. What would I find?

SPARTA TODAY

I found a county and a town that were clearly growing, but not to the degree of the Boone area, where growth (read: big box stores along traffic-clogged five-lanes and gated golf communities with outrageously expensive homes clinging to cliffs) strikes me as completely out of control.

So far, little Alleghany seems to have avoided much of the mountain shtick that seems so pervasive elsewhere. So far, at least. One gets the sickly feeling that it’s just a matter of time until the developers discover Alleghany.

A MOUNTAIN MAN-EDITOR

And I found a thriving Alleghany News office smack dab on a bustling Main Street just across from the paper’s former location.

Sparta

Then I found a true mountain man running the operation in the person of editor Coby LaRue, a native of the region.

After a stint as a techie in the early 90s in RTI, Coby realized where he belonged, and got himself back to the hills, where for 12 years he’s been the paper’s editor.

With only two other writers and a summer intern, Coby is your classic weekly editor, doing a little bit of everything from writing, taking pictures, doing the layouts (Quark on Macs), walking the paper through the production process, stripping in the negatives and getting the paper printed down in Wilkesboro, an hours drive “off the mountain,” as the locals say. He even admits to hassling the pressmen if the printing doesn’t suit him. Though he didn’t say it, I imagine Coby helps with the mailing too. I’d say he’s The Compleate Editor.

At home, he has a wife and two small children, a garden and chickens. When you talk to Coby LaRue, you get the definite impressive that here is a man who has found his calling in life.

Not that his bed is one of roses. With a wry grin, he said, “If you live long enough – and I live long enough – I’ll definitely make everybody in this town mad at least once.”

JUST THE THREE OF US

The Hubbards of the Wilkes Journal-Patriot down in Wilkesboro own the Alleghany News, a 4,800-circulation weekly covering the mountain county of 10,000 souls.

Today’s workshop included Coby’s delightful intern, a bright local kid named Hannah Smith who is also a rising sophomore at UNC-Chapel Hill (and coincidentally the daughter of one of my old Sparta pals from way back when!)

And since there were only the three of us, the session turned into a spirited conversation. I was touched with how eager and receptive both Coby and Hannah were to hear coaching suggestions about how to improve the writing, photography and lay-out in the paper.

I came away from Sparta reaffirmed that these free, on-site journalism workshops are valuable and that they are working. Though the results may be difficult to quantify, I believe Johnny Appleseed would approve.

A NEWSPAPER WAR IN MT. AIRY
Wednesday, July 17

What would Sheriff Andy Griffith think about the newspaper brawl going on in his old Mayberry?

In case you haven’t heard, there’s a newspaper war going on in Mount Airy, where the upstart Surry Messenger launched a five-day-a-week daily paper on July 9 in response to the Heartland group’s purchase of Mid-south Management of Spartanburg in mid-June.

Previously, MSM owned the community papers not just in Mount Airy, but also Elkin, Yadkinville, West Jefferson and Stokes County. All were sold as part of a package deal with Heartland Publications LLC of Conn., which if my hunch is right, did what any new profit-driven out-of-town chain does when they purchase new properties: they make cuts.

Mt. Airy

Whatever happened, the result was that many folks from both the Mount Airy News and the Elkin Tribune said in effect: No Way, Jose. We’ll just start our own daggum newspaper. And on July 9, that’s exactly what they did.

THEY’LL NEED THOSE DEEP POCKETS

After securing financial backing of a local investor who is said to have deep pockets, they set up shop in a local shopping center and went about the adventurous business of creating what Publisher Michael Milligan claims is the first daily start-up in North Carolina in 40 years.

And another thing the new paper’s leaders wanted me to know, the Messenger is an Investor-EMPLOYEE owned paper. That’s a different breed of cat, and accounts for the energy I witnessed at the Messenger office during my visit today.

The Messenger staff of 17 includes four staffers who had worked at Elkin and 13 who had worked at Mount Airy, including former Mount Airy News Publisher Michael Milligan, former Elkin Tribune Editor Rebel Good and former News Managing Editor Phil Goble.

The Messenger has a free home delivery circulation of 8,973, distributing mostly to northern Surry County for the time being. With about 80 rack locations, the Messenger’s circulation gets up to 10k daily. They are printed in High Point, an hour’s drive away.

At the Messenger, Milligan is publisher and Good is editor.

AND IT GETS MESSY

To make matters nastier, Heartland has sued the new paper, accusing them of “raiding” (their word) their staff of key personnel, circulation records and computer passwords. I’m not going to stick my foot in this legal donnybrook. (For more information on the lawsuit, check out the work of Sherry Youngquist of the Winston-Salem Journal who has done some fine reporting on this story.) My job is to try and help ALL community newspapers of this state.

Meghan Cooke

That’s what I was trying to do last month when I phoned the new editor of the Elkin Tribune, and when I began chatting about the change in ownership, he abruptly hung up on me.

In my publisher’s playbook, that is an unforgivable sin. You don’t hang up on people no matter what. So excuse me if I’m not feeling very charitable towards Heartland Publications LLC right now.

A LONG HISTORY

And in the interest of full disclosure, I’ve had a decades long relationship with many of the folks at the old News and Tribune, several of whom have been longtime supporters of the Community Media Project and this Roadshow. Milligan and then Managing Editor Phil Goble hosted my Roadshow visit to the News a couple of summers ago, and Rebel Good, UNC-CH class of ‘69, had been at the Elkin Tribune for 29 years, since 1978!

I was so fond of Milligan and Goble that I placed one of my most outstanding community journalism students, Meghan Cooke, at the News for an internship there this summer, never suspecting that the rising junior from King might get caught up in the teeth of this newspaper slugfest.

Visiting and counseling with Meghan today, I was relieved to hear her say that the experience, though harrowing, has been valuable. With the News staff down to a skeleton crew, her workload (and number of clips) has increased tremendously, making her all but indispensable to the News.

IN ALL FAIRNESS

While I was in Mt. Airy, I paid a visit to the new News office where I was greeted courteously by Heartland’s new publisher, Gary Lawrence, who was kind enough to give me some of his time. Sitting in his office decorated with University of Alabama sports mementoes and memorabilia, we had a frank talk about the summer’s transition, and I left the News feeling a little better about Heartland.

MEANWHILE ACROSS TOWN…

At the busy office of the Messenger, I watched an impromptu newsroom jam session where publisher Milligan delivered a stirring pep talk. “We’re on the cutting edge!” he told his staff with the vigor of a high school football coach dishing out a halftime locker-room pep talk.

Messenger Staff

If Milligan is the high-energy football coach, then Good is the wise old civics teacher. Their chemistry works. In fact, the chemistry of the Messenger newsroom was palpable – the place looking trendy with a dozen white Mac desktops studded about the one wide-open room, an industrial work-in-progress atmosphere about the place supplied by wires dangling from an unfinished ceiling, and reporters rushing here and there, answering phones, hollering at each other – the complete opposite of my morning’s visit to the other paper, which I had found eerily quiet and with no sense of urgency.

And the Messenger is on the cutting edge. In a country where most all dailies are distributed by paid subscription, starting up a daily and offering it for free is a bold and risky business model.

But if anybody can make it work, these folks can.

Their online edition should be up and working some time in late July. Go to www.surrymessenger.com

TEACHING TEACHERS
Wilkesboro, July 17

Today I drove to the Brushy Mountains of Wilkes County to talk to a bunch of middle school teachers about how to help kids see.

The brainchild of Sandy Cook, our school’s Newspapers in Education guru, this was the third such workshop I’ve helped her with in the last two summers. Last year, when I helped with similar workshops in Moravian Falls and Asheville, I was impressed with the dedication of these public school teachers.

Today was no different; 30-some teachers from Burke, Wilkes, Forsyth and Surry counties who were eager to learn how to use simple point-and-shoot photography to help kids grasp the basic vocabulary of visual communications.

I told them I wished that years ago I had had teachers who even knew a shred about different learning styles — for I’m a classic visual learner. Math? Forget it! But put the equation into a picture form – as in geometry — and I see the problem instantly.

Teach Wilkes

So I showed these teachers examples of great photography: the masters and the Pulitzers. And I showed them photo projects their students could take on to help them express themselves visually and to hone their visual communications skills.

Along the way I hope I told them about the nobility and importance of our craft/art/profession.

“We’re never not teaching,” a wise old math teacher once told a faculty meeting years ago at Brevard College.

Repeat: “We’re never not teaching.” Forget the double-negative. There’s power in that mantra. It means: your open office door sends a message to students; your office door shut tight sends another.

As I think back to my great teacher/mentor/editors who helped shape me, they had a common trait: that they were always teaching, and that their “doors,” so to speak, were always open. Open to the wandering kid in search of a paper clip, a word of advice, a life.

And I told these teachers about Martha Gill, the English teacher and journalism advisor at Chapel Hill High School who first picked me out of the crowd and noticed me for who I really was.

Upon spying my humble scrapbook of snapshots one afternoon during a journalism club meeting, Mrs. Gill chirped brightly, “Why Jock, you’re a photographer!” — thus, with a single sentence, sending me on my lifelong career path.

Would that I could so launch young lives on their true trajectories.

Today as I led that session with these teachers, I could see in their faces the same unselfish passion to make a difference in some kid’s life. And today I was again proud to be a teacher.

TO THERE AND BACK

And thus ends the 7th Annual Johnny Appleseed, Willie Nelson, Charles Kuralt, James Taylor, Jack Kerouac, Johnny Cash, ‘Possum-Dodgin’ Summer Community Journalism Roadshow.

In three months the Roadshow workshops have reached 17 communities and/or newspapers across North Carolina:

Bryson City, the Smoky Mountain Times
Warrenton, the Warren Record
Littleton, the Lake Gaston Gazette
Burgaw, the Pender Post
Denton, the Denton Orator
Siler City/Pittsboro, the Chatham News and Record
Kenly, the Kenly News
Selma, the Selma News
Wilson’s Mills, the Wilson’s Mills News
Pine Level, the Pine Level News
Southern Pines, the Pilot (the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship)
Wilkesboro, Newspapers in Education, teachers’ workshop
Mount Airy, the Mount Airy News and the Surry Messenger
Sparta, the Alleghany News

ONWARD AND UPWARD

On my office back in Chapel Hill wall hangs a state map that now has 125 colored pins from Murphy to Manteo, each one pinpointing a community paper that the Roadshow has reached since the summer of 2001.

Where will the road take us next summer? And what new “road warrior” shall we add to the Roadshow hall of fame?

Any suggestions?

As Frasier used to say: “I’m listening.”

jock@email.unc.edu

KENLY: ANOTHER BEST-KEPT SECRET
You’ve heard of the proverbial one-stoplight town. That would be Kenly, except that there’s a new red-light out there by 1-95. So I reckon they’ve hit the big-time now.

Still, little (pop. 1,784) Kenly in the eastern Johnston County, 30 miles from the hustle and bustle of Raleigh, retains its small-town feel — two stoplights or not.

One wonders when the explosive Johnston County sprawl will hit Kenly, on borrowed time for now. I bet the growth issues are already there, albeit muted compared to what’s coming down the pike, as it were.

I couldn’t help but like Kenly, where people waved at me – a rank stranger, as I drove through their town on this crystal clear July morning, washed free of the muggies by last night’s wave of thunderbumpers.

Kenly CSX

Typical to many Southern railroad towns, what little traffic there is comes to a dead stop when the CSX freight train comes hooting through, loudly slicing down the center of Kenly like a hot knife through butter.

Right there in the heart of downtown I find the charming antique office of the Kenly News– a scene to warm the heart of Norman Rockwell: a converted 19th century general store complete with creaking wooden floors, high ceilings, the glass storefront displaying an old typewriter and camera collection, and even a cast iron, pot-bellied coal stove in the back, left over from the general store days.

Yes, they have modern HVAC and computers. But the paper’s office is a delightful throwback – even to the tall double glass front doors with original door handle and the brass bell that announces each entering reader with a musical “Ding!”

Talk about reader access. No surveillance camera; no armed guard in the lobby (no lobby!); no keypad to the newsroom. When I walked in, before anyone recognized me, someone gave me a friendly “Hey!” Little wonder I felt so immediately at home at the Kenly News.

HYPERLOCAL

Kenly Backshop

The husband and wife team of Rick and Karen Stewart own and publishes the News, Rick serving as editor and publisher, and Karen as co-publisher and office manager. If this is a “mom and pop” operation, it’s a good one.

The Stewarts were hyperlocal before there was such a word as hyperlocal.

Instead of putting out a countywide edition and having to go head-to-head with excellent community papers in Smithfield (the Herald) and Clayton (the News-Star), Stewart creates micro-editions for nearby small towns within his coverage area.

So in addition to the Kenly News and the neighboring Selma News (a one-woman show run by Kelly Lake, who does it ALL), his diverse staff also produces weeklies for Pine Level and Wilson’s Mills by making local fronts for both communities. The Kenly News’ second in command is News Editor Cami Jo Narron, who came to the paper as a graphic designer after taking classes at the local community college. Staff writer Jamie Hodges, who especially likes sports, came to the Kenly News from the Wilson paper. He’s workhorse; the week I was there Jamie had three out of the four front-page stories.

All four Stewart papers are printed by contract in Benson, where a press serves the printing needs of several area community papers that don’t own their own presses. (We did the same thing for years at my papers in Forest City and Marion before being able to buy and maintain an expensive newspaper press of our own.)

BIG DEALS IN SMALL PLACES
In small places, seemingly small news items have major impacts. Last the week the Kenly News led with a story about a local veteran doctor leaving town for better opportunities elsewhere. But the town had attracted a new librarian, so there was cause to celebrate some. Down in Selma, the paper there was following an ugly dispute between local firefighters and town government, and back in Kenly I learned than an escaped emu, which was still at large, had terrorized kids attending a local vacation bible school.

Other than that, it felt like a quiet week in Kenly/Selma/Pine Level/Wilson’s Mills.

WHY FOLKS LIVE WHERE THEY LIVE
Driving through one of North Carolina’s many small towns like Kenly, you have to ask yourself: who lives here and why? No bright lights/big city, for sure. The local Siemens plant is shutting down and moving to Mexico. To live in Kenly is to work elsewhere I’m told – Selma, Smithfield, Wilson or Goldsboro. In other words, you have to want to live in Kenly.

Happily, for Rick Stewart and other publishers of North Carolina community newspapers, many folks wouldn’t live anywhere else.

It’s the kind of place where, when asked to list briefly words that define their community, Kenly News staffers offered: community, family, school and church-oriented.

It’s the kind of place where before lunch, the newspaper staff says grace over the pizza.

It ain’t Chapel Hill, folks; it’s North Carolina.

A LITTLE JEWEL

Tobacco Barn

And another thing: my travels to small-town-N.C. defy the stereotypes of “sleepy towns nestling…”

Every town I go to invariably surprises me with some best-kept secret: the historic homes of Warrenton, the Old Threshers’ Reunion in Denton, the Yam Festival in Tabor City – and in Kenly’s case, the Tobacco Farm Life Museum.

Not a stone’s throw from downtown, an authentically restored tobacco farmstead rests tranquilly beneath the towering loblolly pines — complete with tobacco barn, homestead, outbuildings, farm equipment working blacksmith’s shop, and most recently, a historic one-room schoolhouse. I am further impressed to learn that the Tobacco Farm Life Museum is the result of local initiative and local financial support. You go, Kenly! What a great place to bring kids to show them what rural North Carolina farm life used to looked like.

Next time you’re near Kenly, (exit 107 off I-95 with easy access), this is a must for history buffs.

US OPEN WOMEN’S GOLF CHAMPIONSHIP REDUX
For an old newsie-turned-“perfesser,” nothing beats getting out of the classroom and into the newsroom.

When classes are over in May, I put Chapel Hill in the rear-view mirror as I hit the road, leading journalism workshops at community newspapers from Murphy to Manteo.

U.S. Open Staff

Then, if I’m really lucky, I’ll find a community paper that needs a helping hand for some special project. The ol’ perfesser got a reality gut-check when he joined the fine staff of the Pilot of Southern Pines as they went daily once again for the U.S. Women’s Golf Championship at Pine Needles in Pinehurst earlier this month.

This was the brainchild of publisher David Woronoff who refuses to be intimidated by the national and international media presence in his county. His response to a major golfing event is to convert his tri-weekly into a daily for the duration of the tournament.

To pull this off, he has enlisted the help of several volunteers to help crank out the “US OPEN DAILY,” eight 72-page tabloid morning editions that put the competition to shame.

I’ve joined The Pilot family for three of the five U.S. Opens held at Pinehurst: ’99, ’05 and again this summer.

What a treat. I got an insider’s view of a top-quality community newspaper doing some of the very best “relentlessly local” journalism around.

Pardon the vernacular, but as the expression goes: It don’t get no better than this.

VIGNETTES THROUGH MY LENS

Erin France

As I sat in the bustling media tent, in front of me the humongous media scoreboard stretched 60 feet across the room. Perhaps you’ve heard about the “Asian Invasion” of women golfers from mainly Korea. I’m counting: 10 Kims, six Parks and six Lees.

That still doesn’t get me off the hook for misidentifying Grace Park in Monday’s paper as “Grace Kim.” In the ol’ perfesser’s class back at UNC, such a factual error gets a kid an automatic 50.

Bad perfesser. BAD!

RIGHT THERE WITH THE BIG BOYS
I’m not sure how it came to be, but The Pilot crew had a front-row seat in the media tent where about 400 other media folk were massed — on our left, The N&O, and on our right, USA TODAY.

Not too shabby. Reminds me of Pilot publisher David Woronoff’s mantra: “We may be small-town, but we’ll never be small-time.”

STAR WARS IS NOW

Cover Photo

In the ’99 Open, Pilot photojournalists shot film and processed it at a one-hour place. In ’05, we’d gone digital and were able to send photos by email. Now by ’07, photo-technology has gotten even slicker. Photographer Joann Dost had a Star Wars camera that allowed her to dictate caption information into the back of her camera.

Can you imagine what media technology will be like in ’14?

We’ll see. I plan to be there!

NEW FOUND RESPECT
Through seven days of grueling heat, sweat soaked through shirt, pants and photo vest, blisters on toes and plenty of SPF 48, the old bod did pretty well for all its 62 years. Only my dogs suffered. On my feet marching around the dusty eight miles of Pine Needles from 8-5 daily…who needed “exercise” after that? I needed NEW DOGS.

Cover Photo

After shooting the US Women’s Open for the Pilot, I have a new respect for older workers who must stand or walk during their entire shift. Ouch!

OUR BUDS
One the best things about a great newsroom is great friends. I truly felt that David Woronoff had pulled together a bunch of folks who honestly liked being around each other – much less working together. Did we have fun? You betcha.

I’ll remember Lee Pace whose sportswriting  sometimes resembled poetry…Brad King for his companionable nature… Gordon White for his wry sense of humor… photo editor Sandie Rose for her grace under pressure… golf writing guru Jim Dodson who wouldn’t let a little thing like a gall bladder on the fritz keep him down…sports editor Hunter Chase who kept us all in stitches …veteran golf writer Howard Ward who keeps saying “this is my last US Open…” and then keeps coming back…”My reporter” and future Pulitzer-prize winner, Erin France…veteran Pilot editor “back at the mole hole” and bud extraordinaire Steve Bouser… and finally Woronoff, who on the first day told us all gathered for our first staff meeting: “Stay loose and have fun!” And he also noted we were surrounded by major media outlets, but that he expected that we would administer the shoe leather to their nether regions.

Looking back at our work, I believe we did kick some___.

HEADING WEST
Next week the Roadshow heads west as I lead a visual communications workshop for middle school teachers in Wilkes County, go to Mt. Airy to check out the brand-new Surry Messenger, an outrageous start-up, and then take a sentimental journey to the little mountain town of Sparta and the Alleghany News where I served as a “green-as-grass” editor of that one-man-paper fresh out of college many moons ago.