I’m joining the Upstate Business Journal as senior business writer.
It brings me home after commuting to Charlotte each week to work for another media company.
That was a good job working with good people. But it wasn’t home.
Greenville is.
This is where I worked for the daily newspaper for 18 years as a reporter and editor. It’s where Nancy and I built a house that is still home. It’s where she is an 18-year cancer survivor, thanks to wonderful – and many local – doctors, nurses and clinicians.
It’s where our youngest daughter, Ellen, moved into the fifth grade, then attended middle school and graduated from Greenville High.
It’s where our middle daughter, Abby, got her nursing degree. She works for a local hospital system and is raising her two young sons here with her husband, John, a local banker.
It’s where our oldest daughter, Sara, lived between an undergraduate degree from the University of Colorado and a law degree from the University of Georgia.
I’m not from around here, however.
I was born and raised in Shreveport, La., adopted by two loving parents. I graduated from the University of Arizona with a journalism degree and no one, I assure you, is a bigger fan of the Wildcats.
Nancy and I met in Tucson, married and later began our trek across country with newspaper stops in Dayton, Ohio; Charlotte, N.C.; Columbus, Ga.; and, finally, Greenville.
Ever since I can remember, the written word has been fascinating.
Each day, when the portly teenage paper boy came to our Louisiana home and tossed the bundled roll of news, sports, features and comics, I ran to grab it before my dad could steal it away.
I never understood why the authoritative sports pages rarely captured the excitement I felt, for instance, when Mickey Mantle’s home run in the 1964 World Series won the fifth game for the New York Yankees. I cried when the ball cleared the right-field fence in old Yankee Stadium.
No words in the following day’s sports section seemed to tell the world accurately about the conquest by a 13-year-old’s hero.
I never kept a diary, never considered writing a hobby, nor ever wanted to write beyond the sanctions of classroom English.
But I was often tempted to retrieve my mother’s old gray Underwood typewriter and see if I could manifest what lay beneath the commonplace occurrence.
Many years later, I still love the business of journalism, and covering business.
To be sure, it has changed.
The basic principle of what we do has not.
It’s not about good or bad news in our community. It’s about the truth of what’s happening. It’s about the successes and the failings. It’s about the promises made, but not kept. It’s about asking the tough questions, and making powerful people provide answers.
We have to provide relevant, compelling information you can use to make decisions as consumers and residents.
Greenville’s business environment has much to celebrate. But not everyone is benefiting.
The region’s health and wealth are to be lauded. But not by everyone.
Young entrepreneurs want to come here. The number of small businesses is growing.
Several will fail within three years.
Success or failure, we have to ask why.
That’s what I’ll be doing.
