Farewell, Worthington

Well, it has been a good run. For more than two years I have been the night editor at the Daily Globe, designing the news section pages, reporting occasionally, doing some photography — basically just about a little bit of everything for a journalist. The experience was incredible.
But times change, and I will be moving on to be a general assignment reporter for the Fergus Falls Daily Journal. It will be quite the lifestyle change for me. Waking up to be at work at 8 a.m. will be a little tough after two years of working night shifts.
This decision was not an easy one. My wife, Gina, and I have met some incredible people here over the years, and it’s never easy to have to say goodbye.
We both want to thank everyone we know for all the good times we had. There are a lot of great people in Worthington, and we are going to miss them.
I will miss my co-workers here at the Globe. I remember moving down here from St. Cloud in September 2010. I was moving alone and was broke (I had been freelancing for The St. Cloud Times and working at a record store, so I did not have a lot of money), and Gina had to finish her time working up in St. Cloud for another two weeks. The whole time I was wondering, “Am I crazy to be moving three hours away from home?” But the people here were great to me from the start. I would like to thank Managing Editor Ryan McGaughey and now Community Content Coordinator (former Sports Editor) Aaron Hagen for making my first few weeks here a little less unnerving.
During my time at the Globe, I’ve had some great experiences both professionally and personally. Hey, I got married to the love of my life; that was pretty great. For the wedding, we even had Mr. Hagen and former Globe Sports Reporter (and Australian Football enthusiast) Daniel Kerwin attend.
Professionally, I got to write stories on some interesting people.
My bylines usually were in the special sections like Spring Builders and Car Care, but my journalistic triumph so far was heading to Sibley, Iowa, to cover a Michelle Bachmann presidential campaign stop.
There are many reasons I’ll always remember this wacky story (I say wacky because it was the most surreal event I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been to concerts of bands like Phish, Roger Waters and Rage Against The Machine).
The first reason was that Bachmann was my representative when I lived in St. Cloud. So having a somewhat local “celebrity” from my hometown in the Globe’s coverage area was weird.
Secondly, Bachmann is super nice in person and said the craziest things I’ve ever heard come from a politician’s mouth. Her crazy rants wrote the story for me.
Thirdly, I now know that Hunter S. Thompson’s depictions of the presidential campaign trail in “Fear and Loathing On The Campaign Trail: ’72” was not that far off base in how strange these events actually are.
But all my stories were important to me. I got to meet and share the stories of many people in the community. And every person I did interviews with were nice and accommodating.
And now I must thank everyone at the Globe, especially the newsroom (both current and former) staff who made the past two years great for me. You all helped me out when I needed help on things. I think as a team, we have made the Daily Globe look and read great for the people.
I would also like to thank the Daily Globe for taking a chance on hiring a guy like me, who wrote some weird stories and columns in my college paper, The Chronicle. Considering if you Google my name, there is a whole thread of hate messages about something I wrote about skateboards years ago.
But it’s been a great ride. Election nights were frenzied and fun. Breaking news nights were frustrating and fun in a weird way (changing everything at the last minute is not an easy task). I remember when bin Laden was killed. Wow! That was almost a “Stop The Presses!” moment for me. And there have been many other late-night instances where breaking news came along. It’s a weird rush to do everything you worked all day all over again within minutes of a deadline.
So, thank you Worthington and the Globe, it’s been quite the ride.
Gina and I will miss all of you.