Community journalism to the core

It’s been about 16 months since I stood at a crossroad in my professional life.

I was wrapping up my 17th year as the sports editor here at the Frontiersman. Our publisher, Dennis Anderson, pulled me into his office for a meeting. His message was pretty clear. He wanted me to take the next step in my career, the next step for the Frontiersman.

Dennis is not the first publisher to try to pry me from the sports desk. I am sure some thought it would take a cattle prod to force me out of my sports world that I had cemented myself into. Yes it was a comfort zone. But, second only to my family, sports has been such a tremendous part of my life. I grew up obsessed with sports. When I was not watching the Chicago Cubs on WGN or the Bears on Sundays, I was sifting through thousands of football and baseball cards. I grew up participating in sports, baseball and football as a kid, and football and wrestling in high school. With two bad knees and a turtle-like 40 time it became fairly clear that I probably wasn’t going to compete at the next level. But thanks to a person who I consider a mentor, Sandi Johnson, my English and journalism teacher at Palmer High School, I figured a way to stay close to sports.

I could write about it.

Mrs. Johnson also pushed me, and gave a somewhat clueless kid some direction. She helped provide me the opportunity for my work to be published in the Frontiersman for the first time. It was 1993, and I was a junior in high school.

After spending several years working within the UAF Sports Information Department, I was offered the sports editor gig at the Frontiersman. I accepted it honestly not knowing how long I would be here. I was still a twenty-something. This was before I met me wife.

This was before my two greatest gifts in life, my daughters. I was still in some ways a somewhat clueless kid.

But I had a passion for sports, and that passion carried me. I’ve always said I’ve had the best sports gig in the state. Every year I am writing about region and state champions. But better than that, it’s the people. Coaches, players and administrators across the Valley have always been great to me.

And that’s also why I decided to make the move and lead the newsroom. The people.

As a newspaperman, I’m community journalism to the core. Names and faces are our bread and butter, but we can’t be afraid of tackling the issues. We cover the Valley for the Valley.

The Valley is stocked full of tremendous people who are doing great things in our community, and just as I wrote about the work of our local athletes, I want to write about these people. But we also can’t ignore the issues our community face.

With all of that said, this is my first Voice of the Valley column. I’ll continue to write the J’s World column, with the focus on sports. It might take more than a cattle prod to keep me away from Valley sports completely, but this is an opportunity to provide my take on the Valley outside of sports.

Thank you for reading. We appreciate your support.

Contact Frontiersman managing editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.