Saying goodbye after a memory-filled decade writing for my hometown newspaper [column]

This month marks 10 years since I began working for LNP | LancasterOnline. It also marks my last month writing for this publication.

It’s a bittersweet career moment.

Bitter in saying goodbye to my hometown newspaper, one which I dreamed about working for since I was a child.

Sweet in being thankful for witnessing incredible feats and meeting wonderful people, many of whom have made a positive impact on my life. 

There are also the little things for which I am grateful, like my parents getting the opportunity to see their youngest son’s byline in the newspaper for the last decade.

Those parents are also responsible for planting and watering in me a love for sports during an upbringing which included my dad, a McCaskey High School alum, taking me to see Perry Patterson on the Red Tornado football field, or Jerry Johnson, and then later Dustin Salisbery, hooping on the hardwood for legendary McCaskey coach Steve Powell.

So you might imagine how much of a treat it became years later as a sports reporter to cover Powell in his final seasons on the McCaskey sidelines, and then how much of an honor I consider it to have been in writing about Powell’s life after he died in 2018.

First byline

With a Lancaster newspaper publication actually came with the Intelligencer Journal in 2005 when I was still a student at Penn Manor High School, writing for the weekly Freestyle section aimed at teens. Among the entries came a story shining a light on student-athletes working hard in the weight room over the summer, which took me inside McCaskey High School, where I met a baby-faced strength trainer by the name of Todd Mealy, who has since gone on to achieve success as a father, teacher, author and football coach.

State champions

Over the last 10 years in a full-time capacity with LNP | LancasterOnline, I’ve been privileged to cover two high school teams from Lancaster County that won state championships: 2018 Manheim Township boys lacrosse and 2023 Lancaster Mennonite boys basketball. … and who knows how far those boys basketball players on the 2020 Lancaster Catholic Crusaders would’ve gone if not for the COVID-19 pandemic putting a stop to their magical season in the state quarterfinals.

Buzzer-beaters

A few unforgettable ones in boys basketball: Richland’s Tyler Zimmerman sinking a game-winning halfcourt heave to top Lancaster Mennonite in a 2018 state semifinal, Lancaster Mennonite’s Isaac Beers drilling a game-tying 3-pointer from about two feet behind the arc to send into overtime a 2017 District Three semifinal eventually won by the Blazers, and Lampeter-Strasburg’s Ty Burton getting a rim-rattling 3-pointer to fall through to win the 2022 Lancaster-Lebanon League championship game.

Fandom

And then there are two special moments which I will forever point to when describing L-L League fandom: students and staff across the county wearing red in support of Warwick in the days and weeks after the car crash out front of the high school that took the lives of two students in October 2018, and student sections across the league wearing orange in support of Lampeter-Strasburg High School alum Ryan Smith as he fought leukemia in 2019. 

If he were still alive, Smith would likely be getting paid to play basketball professionally somewhere right now. Instead, this March will mark four years since his untimely death.

Award

Smith’s courageous cancer battle is part of the reason why I selected him posthumously for the Inspirational Athlete award, given out annually at the Lancaster County Sports Hall of Fame banquet.

The award has been around since 2019, born out of the 100-episode Inspirational Athletes podcast in which I created and hosted in my early years here at LNP | LancasterOnline.

The podcast came after my own bout with lymphoma cancer in 2015 - my first months working here.

Life change

After treatment concluded, a fertility doctor informed me the chemotherapy wiped out my ability to conceive. My wife and I nearly believed it when she suffered a miscarriage two days after Christmas in 2017.

Our faith in Jesus Christ guided us through those dark times. And God has since worked miracles in that we’re now parents to three young children, all conceived naturally. 

Those hardships have developed in me a passion to be a messenger of portraits of grief and triumph about folks overcoming significant physical and emotional challenges.

In an effort to tell more of those stories, I transitioned out of the sports department into a features/profiles writing role with LNP | LancasterOnline in March 2023.

And it’s part of the reason in what has led me to the latest career move: I’ll soon be helping tell similar stories for a local healthcare provider.

But I’ll still be cheering on this publication, and implore you to continue to support the talented, hard-working journalists, editors and the leadership as they collectively try to successfully steer into an ever-changing media landscape.

I’ll be forever thankful for my time at LNP | LancasterOnline. I hope the 10 years worth of stories of which I’ve been a messenger have made a positive impact for some of those I had the pleasure of writing about.

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