Puttin’ on the Style[book]

A spur-of-the-moment purchase connects me to my former career.

It was nearly five years ago that I left my nearly-35-year career with the Shelbyville Times-Gazette to take a job with Bedford County government, I have no regrets; I made the right decision at the right time. I had not been looking to leave, but was offered a job and took it. I miss the constant conversation of being in a newsroom; now, I’m the only person on the second floor of the historic Bedford County Courthouse. I have radio to keep me company, and I wander downstairs to check in with the county mayor’s office periodically.

I’m where I need to be. But occasionally, I will feel little pangs of nostalgia, or wish I was able to cover such-and-such a news story or attend such-and-such an event.

This is an election year, and one tiny little holdover from my journalism days is that on Election Night, I phone in Bedford County vote totals to The Associated Press (AP), the long-time wire service owned by its member-subscribers. It’s a fun little freelance job which I started doing many years ago while I was at the paper and which I never gave up. I always joke that for the evening, I’m a co-worker of my old friend Peter Smith, an outstanding and award-winning journalist who now reports on religion for AP.