Rachel Lord joins Albany Herald news staff

ALBANY — Rachel Lord has joined The Albany Herald news staff as an audience engagement specialist. One of her primary roles in the position will be to impact reader engagement on the newspaper’s website, AlbanyHerald.com.

An Ashburn native who was Turner County High School’s valedictorian and STAR Student, Lord recently completed requirements for her degree in English-Creative Writing from Georgia College & State University in Milledgeville, where she maintained a 3.95 grade-point average. Lord earned an associate’s degree in English at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton, where she maintained a 4.0 GPA.

At ABAC, Lord was on the staff of the college’s literary magazine, “Pegasus,” for two years. She was fiction editor and editorial assistant, and won a Pacesetter award. She also was on the staff of GCSU’s literary magazine “The Peacock’s Feet.” She had works published in both magazines.

“I’ve loved writing since I was a little girl,” Lord said. “I can remember attempting to write a novel for the first time when I couldn’t have been more than 7 or 8. When I took my first creative writing class at ABAC, I knew that I wanted to learn more about creative writing. I transferred to GCSU because of their undergraduate creative writing program and fell in love in my first creative nonfiction writing workshop.

“While at GCSU, I also had the opportunity to take a few journalism classes, and I felt that the field of journalism and news writing was the perfect practical application of my love for writing. I reached out to the editor here, Carlton Fletcher, in March of 2018 while I was in my next-to-last semester at GCSU about writing a few stories for The Herald to get some experience. Despite my minimal journalism experience and not knowing me from Adam, he took a chance on me and let me write my first article about the merger between ABAC and Bainbridge State College, and even put it on the front page. I started writing more regularly as a correspondent while I finished up my degree, and when a full-time position opened up, I was happy to apply.”

Fletcher said that when Herald Publisher/President Scot Morrissey and he discussed the new position that would focus on digital content, he immediately thought of Lord.

“Rachel had impressed me with her talent and her work ethic, so when the need arose for this new, hybrid position, I had no doubt that she would be an excellent fit,” Fletcher said. “She has already had an impact on The Herald’s AlbanyHerald.com website and on the print edition of the paper.

“When I interviewed Rachel and asked her future goals, one of the things she told me was ‘I want your job.’ I was initially taken aback, but she quickly followed, ‘I want to know everything you know and learn everything I can from you so that when you retire, I’ll be ready to do your job.’ Anybody not impressed by that spirit is just not paying attention.”

Moorrissey said that as The Herald focuses more on its AlbanyHerald.com digital product, Lord will have an opportunity to play a major role in bringing the venerable newspaper to a younger, more tech-savvy audience while creating content that will appeal to traditional readers as well.

Lord’s father, Paul Lord, told her that she was “following in his footsteps,” since he and his brother delivered The Albany Herald in Sycamore as pre-teens and teenagers. Rachel Lord’s parents — Paul and Sharon — still live in Ashburn. She and her high school-sweetheart husband, Ron Elizondo, live in Albany. They have been married a little more than two years.

In addition to her work at The Herald, Lord writes narrative/creative nonfiction and is currently at work on an essay collection titled “Three Napkin Roses.”