This was one of the last stories I wrote while at the Daily News, but it was also one of the most enjoyable. At more than 2,200 words this was the largest feature article I wrote.

At about 12:30 a.m. I was able to reach Terry Sampson via a phone call as he strolled around the streets of Las Vegas on vacation. As I sat in my office chair typing away, Terry continued to talk on his phone as he traveled from his hotel room, down the elevator, into a taxi and onto the Vegas Strip.

It was the only time he was available that day to be reached, but everything worked out well as I was able to tell the story of a Greenville graduate who had found success in Hollywood and come out on top with a Grammy in hand.

Terry received the award for a gospel song he had written 20 years earlier. While driving through the streets of Chicago decades later, he heard his song through the speakers of his car radio...






'He's a fighter'

One of the more dramatic stories written while at the Daily News, this article featured the tale of a mother who nearly lost her son as they mowed the lawn together one sunny afternoon.

This wasn't the kind of story I was willing to write by simply interviewing Chalista Blum and her son over the phone. I drove out to Stanton, Mich. to speak to the both of them in person. I walked onto the lawn where John nearly lost his life under the blades of a riding lawn mower.

John already suffered from several other disorders as a result of a premature birth, making his recovery process all the harder.




Driving the road to employment

One of the landmarks of the city of Greenville was the Electrolux refrigerator plant, an employer of more than 2,700 workers in a city of less than 10,000 residents.

But in 2006 the plant closed its doors and moved it's operations to Mexico, pulling the rug out from thousands of workers, many who had worked on the refrigerator assembly line for more than 35 years.

But despite the hard economic times and the spike in unemployment, a group of former workers became students, learned a new trade and began a new life.

They literally 'drove the road' to employment.

For this story I spent several days with these former Electrolux workers, riding along with them as they cruised through town passing the empty lot where the refrigerator plant used to stand.

I took photos and notes as they parked between cones, cheered each other on and began their new path leaving the world of Electrolux as it faded away in the rear view mirror...


Remembering a hero

One of my first assignments at the Daily News was to write a story for memorial day weekend.

I didn't want to write the typical "memorial day parade" or "flag planting at cemetery" story, as I felt that didn't do the holiday justice.

I wanted my readers to read a story that would touch them, that would bring them back to the reason we celebrate memorial day.

Enter Staff Sgt. Donald Smith, who was killed serving his country just three weeks before the end of WWII. A resident of Greenville, I told his story through the letters his 85 year-old sister still had in her possession and through old clippings of the Daily News printed in 1945.

Here was a story people could read about and remember why they plant that flag in their yard every memorial day.