One of the biggest privileges of my job is covering the community that has shaped me into who I am. Working for the newspaper has been so much more than a job, it’s been a way to give back and contribute what I feel the community deserves. I would describe myself as a civically engaged ...

Never in a million years did I think I would be a year out of high school working as a local reporter. As a matter of fact, I backed out of the position when it first came before me in February. The newspaper was something I read, not something I played a part in making. After the initial ...

I was a chubby baby, a chunky toddler, then a husky pre-adolescent. When I got into my teen years, the pretty adjectives went out the window, and the phrase "Jeez, you're fat" came flying in. Now, if you've ever seen me on the street, you know what I'm talking about here. I am not ...

As I sit here typing, I think of the great fun we'll all have on the 4th. My second daughter was born on this day at 9:30 in the evening. The doctor told us we have our very own fireworks! We've always enjoyed the festivities on Independence Day. For about the first seven years of her ...

We’ve all cried at one time or another. As an ornery kid, my dad would give me well-deserved, overdue whoopins’ and I’d cry. Or have you laughed so hard that you cried? Interestingly, the older we get, we tend to cry less. In college, I got ticked off at my dad and said some things ...

I'm not a reporter. I'm not a journalist. I am an artist. I have been the cartoonist for the paper here for well over a year, but I've been playing "reporter" for only a few months. Now I can't tell you how I go about making my cartoons because that process is weird and uniquely my ...

As of this week's paper, I will be 14 weeks into my stay at the Tama-Toledo News Chronicle. Now I don’t want to say everything has been easy by any means, I’ve experienced lots of late nights and cut many deadlines close. Through the ups and downs that is local reporting, I’ve come ...

I love my neighbors — they’re the spice of life...they’re helpful, encouraging and most of all, downright entertaining! They make for lol! My neighbor in DeWitt believed his property line went through our backyard even after having it surveyed. Since he loved mowing (daily!), he ...

I have never in my life thought about leaving Toledo. I was raised here, and I'll die here, just hopefully not today. I have friends that have traveled from coast to coast, one friend that just went to Florence, I know a woman who just visited Italy, and I know people that annually travel ...

When I started with the newspaper in March, approaching strangers seemed like a very daunting task. Before diving into local journalism, you probably wouldn't see me striking up a conversation with someone I wasn’t familiar with. I wouldn't describe myself as someone with social anxiety ...