January 13, 2003

Back to my first love: Photojournalism

Through A Glass Darkly, by John Myers, Internet Photojournalist
After about a year and a half working at the Richmond County Daily Journal in Rockingham, NC as a copy editor, I changed jobs last week. I'm now a photojournalist/reporter, writing and taking photos for news and feature stories.
It's a return to my first love. Lo, many, many years ago when I graduated from the University of Missouri with a photojournalism degree, I came back to North Carolina to begin my journalism career as the police reporter for the Sanford Herald in Sanford.
After about three years working as a reporter and photographer doing news and feature stories for the Sanford and Fayetteville daily newspapers, I moved sideways into weekly newspapers as news editor of the Moore County News in Carthage for a couple of reasons.
At the weekly level, one can be an editor and a reporter both, gaining control of layout and use of the stories and photos that you create. But the foremost reason was getting out of the cycle of morning newspaper work, which requires working until late at night.
I had two young children then, and saw little of them during the week -- or my wife either -- due to the hours of the morning newspaper schedule, working from 3 p.m. to midnight.

Round trip to Rockingham

The owner of the newspapers I went to work for in Moore County was none other than the former publisher and owner of the Daily Journal, J. Neal Cadieu of Rockingham. Among my duties from 1978-82 was bringing the newspaper files down to Rockingham from Moore County so they could be printed here and taken back for distribution.
And to make a long story even longer, that's where I found myself again in June 2001, working a morning newspaper schedule here at the Daily Journal as a copy editor.
It's not a bad life for a single person, which I what I was then. But my home life changed again in July 2002, when I got married again. I've always been a firm believer in keeping on doing something until you get it right. And this time, I got it right with my new wife.
Only problem was I found myself right back where I started, working a night schedule while she works a day schedule as a teacher at West Rockingham Elementary School.

Back to photojournalism, gladly

So when Editor R. Shawn Lewis offered me a reporter's job which came open here at the Daily Journal, I hesitated for about one third of a nanosecond and took him up on the offer.
So now I'm back to working day hours, more or less, except for the occasional night meeting, and my dear wife and I are enjoying a normal life as happily married newlyweds.
Which brings me to your part, dear readers. We reporters can't do our jobs without help from the public, because our readers are the people we want to write about, not about ourselves -- with the sole exception of editorial page opinion columns, like this one.
And one thing I could use some help with is hearing from our readers who have had and are still having close encounters of the white squirrel kind. I wrote a pair of brief stories previously based on reports sent to the paper by local folks about the white squirrels.

Wanted: Interview with a white squirrel

But when I finally had the time to get out and do a story on these curious critters myself, I struck out. One of my neighbors near my Pinedale Road home in Panglewood subdivision had been getting regular visits from a white squirrel who ate pecans on her front porch.
But that particular white squirrel hasn't been seen since New Year's Day. My neighbor is of the opinion that the missing critter is a female who is busy building a nest to prepare for a maternal event, and will soon return. How she knows that I am not sure, and I sure hope nothing fatal has happened to this particular white squirrel who seems to have had regular rounds until Jan. 1 on Pinedale Road and Morningside Drive in Panglewood subdivision.
Another neighbor tells me he has seen at least two or three other white squirrels, so I have been watching our neighborhood carefully, but without any encounters so far.
I previously lived over on DeWeese Avenue near U.S. 1 (Fayetteville Street) nearly a mile from my present home, and saw a white squirrel there about six months ago, so I believe it must be a different white squirrel in that area than the Panglewood critters.
If anyone can arrange an interview with one or more white squirrels, I would be grateful.