Wales native joins Albany Herald staff

ALBANY – Kathryn Crockett has joined The Albany Herald news staff, bringing experience in writing, photography and editing to the editorial staff as a reporter.

A native of Wales, U.K., Crockett moved to the United States in 2003 and attended school in Utah.

“I went to BYU (Brigham Young University) in Provo and got a degree in visual arts and did photos for the newspaper while I was there,” she said.

After becoming a mother, Crockett became active in food preparation and writing about the topic.

“I started making wedding cakes and got pretty good at that,” she said. “I did some photos for magazines.

“Obviously I’ve been involved with food a lot in my life. That’s the thing I like about southwest Georgia, how much everybody likes to eat.”

The mother of five also participated in “The Carnivore Code Cookbook” in New York. 

“It was a good experience, my first experience working with a big publisher,” she said, “They really believed in me, and they were so wonderful. They really helped a lot.”

In 2020, just before the COVID-19 lockdown, Crockett moved to southwest Georgia to work at White Oak Pastures, a grass-fed beef farm located in Bluffton. There, her duties included photography and writing.

“It was quite the year, quite the introduction to southwest Georgia,” she said.

In 2022 and 2023, Crockett served as editor of the Bainbridge Post-Searchlight newspaper.

“Now, obviously the opportunity came up, and I’m absolutely thrilled to be writing again,” she said. “I missed it a lot. I like letting people know what’s going on in their communities.”

The reporter said she sees similarities between the economic conditions in the region and the rural portions of her native land. The poverty in southwest Georgia reminds her of rural parts of Wales that fell on hard times due to the decline in coal mining.

Crockett’s father was a biological engineer who worked in mine reclamation and the processes of creating greenspace around coal mines, while her mother worked as an office manager in economic development.

“In terms of economic conditions, it’s quite poor, not a lot of economic growth,” she said. “It’s just complex, and I think all people want the same things. I care a lot about that.”