UBJ’s new staff writer looks forward to sharing the Upstate’s stories
I traveled a long distance and fell into many adventures on my way here.
My route to Greenville didn’t follow a straight line, but life usually doesn’t. I started in Mississippi, traveled to Russia, wandered up to Pennsylvania’s snow and ice and even enjoyed some tropical fruit in Colombia before passing through Birmingham and Atlanta on my route to the Upstate.
As a journalist, I look for answers and transparency. Since I started this week as a staff writer at the Upstate Business Journal, I’ll share a few truths about my life and approach to journalism.
First, I come from a family of storytellers in the Mississippi Delta. I graduated from high school in one of those other 30-something Greenvilles, the one in the Magnolia State. I had no idea so many Greenvilles existed until recent months and didn’t know Greenville, S.C., existed until May 2014, when a contact at the Community Development Foundation in Tupelo, Miss., invited me to join him and other economic development and public officials for a field trip here.
I covered local government for a regional newspaper in northeast Mississippi and looked forward to learning about Greenville, S.C., a place held in high esteem by many business and government leaders, including the Tupelo folks who visited the area about six years earlier. My graduate studies in public policy, particularly local government planning, helped me appreciate what has earned the Upstate major accolades and recognition for many years now.
Communities throughout the country send representatives to Greenville to learn about the dynamic, vibrant life here, with intentions of bringing armfuls of innovative ideas back home. This place has risen to top spots on many lists – places to visit, awesome downtowns, where to get a job and places for young professionals to live and work, just to name a few.
After filing a couple of stories to meet deadline, I called my wife with a revelation. “We need to move here!” I told her as I walked along Main Street.
Greenville and the Upstate appear headed for more business and community growth, but now is also a time of tremendous importance as business, government and community leaders help determine the scope and degree of new wealth in the region. Decisions made now will have lasting implications for the region’s future.
For a journalist who loves to tell stories through data, public records, enterprise and old-school reporting, this place has a wealth of not-yet-told stories and plenty of familiar ones with new chapters waiting to be told. I look forward to getting to know people who are longtime fixtures and new residents like myself.
Each day as we go to work and spend time with family and friends, the Upstate’s larger story advances. It’s an honor for me to help tell these many stories.
I will do my part to develop relationships that involve integrity, honesty, trust and accuracy. Journalism remains an industry in flux with innovations and transitions to embrace new mediums. Even with changes, key principles and traits remain essential for good reporting.
Feel free to share those parts of the story you know and think I should know too.
[break]
Learn more about Ward at linkedin.com/in/robbieward. He tweets at @r0bbie_ward.
