A goodbye from this ‘imported reporter’

“Southwest Georgia is red, dusty roads lined with pecan trees and cotton fields. It’s Carlton saying ‘Hey girl’ or ‘What’s up buttercup?’ each time I pick up the phone. Southwest Georgia is going in for a handshake and getting a hug. It’s ‘This is off-the-record,’ a lean-in and small-town gossip in a deep Southern drawl. It’s a groan when I share my non-Bulldog alma mater. It’s poking fun at my ink-stained left hand. Southwest Georgia is love and community. It’s Lola hand-delivering newspapers to the elderly and Amber entertaining stragglers who find their way onto The Albany Herald’s couch. Southwest Georgia is unwritten stories and people thrilled to tell them. Southwest Georgia is starting to feel like home.” 

I wrote that diary entry on Aug. 21, 2023, a month after I moved to Albany to start my first full-time reporting job. Nearly every mentor I had in college warned me not to do exactly this. They cited Albany’s crime, the low salary and the shrinking population. But when I first spoke to Carlton Fletcher and Scot Morrissey about The Albany Herald, something in me knew this was where I needed to be.

That feeling has mostly stayed with me over these two and a half years, even as the realities of the place I report on have occasionally weighed heavy. I also won’t lie that it’s challenging being a young person here, especially with no roots. 

The other day, we received a Squawk, referring to me as “The Albany Herald’s imported reporter,” suggesting that my newness to the community made me less fit to write about it – to understand it. Not being from southwest Georgia has been a hurdle I’ve had to jump over. Thankfully, most people I’ve interviewed have trusted me enough to see past my unfamiliarity. I may have stumbled through the first few introductions, but I learned. I listened. And I cleared that hurdle.

The Albany Herald has been a fantastic place to work, and through my work, I’ve gotten to know this community deeply. In my reporting, I unearthed a region that is so deeply special.

I wrote about a lot of bad things about this place – gun violence, industries leaving, the pain of poverty – but I also wrote about so much good. I’m not a religious person, but the closest I’ve come to feeling God is in writing about the goodness in southwest Georgia. 

His presence was there in Shiloh Baptist Church the first time I heard the Freedom Singers on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2024. If you live in Albany and haven’t attended that program, you should. The city’s civil rights history is profound and deserves to be honored.

I felt God in goosebumps on my arms each time I visited Plains after Jimmy Carter’s death. Reporting on the love his community had for him, hearing story after story about his generosity and humility, will always be among the most meaningful moments of my life. God was hovering over Maranatha Baptist Church as I watched the funeral processions with reporters from across the country. 

God was there each time I plugged coordinates into my phone’s GPS and met a farmer in the middle of a field to learn about a new ag technology, to uncover a new invasive pest or to look over the battered trunks of overturned pecan trees. He was there when I spoke to farmers with sparkling determination in their eyes as they described the discrimination they overcame to hold onto generational land. 

God was within every rural church, food pantry or school classroom I visited in southwest Georgia. He was in Edison as I reported on how the city navigated its financial challenges. He was in Donalsonville when I ate breakfast with retirees of the Cedar Springs Georgia-Pacific Mill and witnessed their heartbreak over the mill’s closure. 

These moments, people and stories are the heartbeat of reporting in southwest Georgia.

I couldn’t have done it without the tiny staff that became my family. Carlton, Alan, Joe, Angela, Phil, Sonja, Scot and Lola – we showed up to work every day, and we put together a paper because we care, and we saw so much good. It hurts to leave, and it’s hard to leave my family in a vulnerable place. Because of this place and these people, I believe in the importance of local news now more than ever. I hope the community can see this importance and feel moved to support its local paper.

Don’t worry, I’ll still be writing the news in southeast Georgia; although, it has a lot to live up to in Georgia’s southwest.

Thank you to The Albany Herald, to Tony’s Gym, to all the local coffee shops, to the Flint Riverkeeper staff and to the Dougherty County Public Library for bringing me so much joy. Mostly, thank you Albany and southwest Georgia for accepting this imported reporter.