The road to becoming a journalist is a rocky one, indeed – I spent the majority of my childhood thinking I would become a second baseman for the Chicago Cubs and never could have foreseen that I would end up penning columns for community newspapers throughout my home state.

I grew up in Montgomery and, at only two years old, became the recipient of the nation’s 11th pediatric liver transplant. At that time, doctors hardly knew if I would make it through the next few weeks, much less another 34 years.

But make it I did and, alongside my brother and sister and a host of cousins and neighborhood friends, I spent my days in much the same way that any Alabama boy does growing up on the outskirts of the city – I played baseball and swam in the Alabama River; I rode bikes up and down homemade ramps and developed a love for music.

That passion for music became the guiding light in my life as, after training for years on classical guitar and saxophone, I started a band that would lead me to play nearly 3,000 shows in 32 states and record eight full-length albums.

Underneath that love for baseball and music, however, another passion began to grow – a passion for the written word. From my earliest days, I ingested books with a fiery quickness, inspired by the same quality in my mother who was rarely seen without a paperback in hand.

When I finally made it to college, I had resolved to become a music teacher, a career I saw as superior to any other since it would give me the opportunity to play music and work with children. But one semester in the “Sound of the South” marching band was enough to convince me to chart another course and there I found journalism.

I fell in love with the art of wordplay and, before finishing my internship, nabbed my first full-time newspaper gig. Since those days, I’ve written for countless newspapers and news sites across the state and nation – the Wetumpka Herald, Clanton Advertiser, The Lagniappe, Alabama Today and even the Wall Street Journal – and even worked as a music teacher. But community news has always been my truest love.

Today, as a husband and father of two, I see so clearly how important the work of a community newsman is – it is on the streets of small towns that the wheels of the American machine can be seen turning, where the results of crass Washington legislation can be seen taking its toll.

In that capacity, I will strive to serve and represent this community with honesty and integrity, with the sincere hope that I will come to know you as well as you will come to know me.