Before you were a journalist ...

Holding up a rainbow trout with a shit-eating grin on my face. Must've not been any older than eight.

 

One morning when I was in junior high school, I was waiting for the school bus when I saw a woman who worked for the community rag taking pictures. So I stepped forward from my position toward the back of the crowd so I could be in the paper. Next week, the paper hits the newsstand with the centerpiece story on junior high students misbehaving on the bus, and there I am, front and center!

 

My name appeared in the old NHL magazine "Goal" when the local NHL team did a feature story on the captain of the Colorado Rockies at the time. I was 11 and get this ... the item mentions that I interviewed the player for a school assignment. Still have a copy of it, too.

 

Oh yeah, and I recently found in a box of old stuff that I would have thrown away but my mom wisely stashed in the attic: A Q&A with the 10th-grade me in the community extra section. I was recognized for my imminent departure for a selective state boarding school, and I was bowled over by the fact that I mentioned the environment as a big issue in response to one of the questions. This was in 1991, so Al Gore and I were out ahead of this thing.

 

Claws- "Goal" magazine? That's awesome. Who was captain of the Rockies then?

Me, first time was when I was in 6th grade and a friend of mine and I raised money to get a stray dog out of the pound. The dog had been a regular at our school until someone in the office finally called the dog catcher. We found a home for the dog and the story appeared in a column in the metro section of the big-city daily.

Second time was when I was in 11th grade- a friend of mine and I had an "underground" newspaper. Some hack wrote a shitty front-page story for the suburban paper. I was referred to as a "self-styled socialist."

After school, I pretty much dropped off the map as far as being a news item, except for occasional mention in community theater write-ups.

 

No comment.

 

It has a "main" A section and a sports/farming/classified section. Sports was limited to one or two or two pages, and the rest was filled with farming and classified stuff.

 

Would you say that's an inaccurate depiction?

 

Listed in obit for my father. Listed as a spelling bee contestant. Listed for my National Merit Scholarship.

 

Won the city spelling bee two years running in 5th and 6th grades.

Would occasionally score a garbage goal in a hockey game.

 

My hometown paper had a youth page where they'd ask youth at different activities each week a question. My vacation bible school was the activity one week, and I was featured. Then when I was a senior, my picture was in the paper helping the valedictorian put on her cap because she was alphabetically next to me. I'm sure I was in the paper a couple of times because of band and middle school track, too, but I don't really remember or care about those as much. I was in the all city spelling bee in 5th grade, too (shocking, I know).

After I was a journalist, doc and my engagement announcement was also in my hometown newspaper which was a completely different feeling than seeing my byline for the first time.

 

I made lots of box scores for going 0-2 from the free throw line, and a few more for actually collecting hits in softball games.

Was also mentioned for going to Girls State, winning the American Legion essay contest my sophomore year (I intentionally blew it the next year with a borderline socialist rant) and for scholarships my senior year.