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By Marc Pruitt
Clemmons Courier

Hello, Clemmons.

Well, hello again.

I’m humbled and honored to be the new editor of the Clemmons Courier. I enjoyed my freelance role with the paper a few years ago and relished the opportunity to meet so many interesting people and share your stories. I could feel the charm and the close-knit togetherness of this community, and I look forward to meeting even more people in my new role.

Though I am relatively new to the Courier, it is not lost on me of its importance in this community. I want to champion this area every week in the paper and provide content that you can enjoy — and content that is important to the fabric of this community.

I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me at this publication. I was a big admirer of Dwight Sparks and Chris Mackie and the work they consistently produced. I can only hope the effort I put into to these pages can somewhat measure up to what they did.

I’m extremely fortunate and grateful to inherit the talents of Jim Buice, Mandy Haggerson and Jay Spivey, names that you will continue to see on these pages. And I’m excited to work with Parker Ramey, a student at West Forsyth who provides our “Titan Tattler” feature. And we have a real gem with the tireless efforts of Christy Clark, who does anything and everything behind the scenes to get this paper to press each and every week.

Jim and I have worked on a few projects together before. Jay and I go back to our days growing up in the same neighborhood. And I know Mandy and her siblings from a brief period I spent coaching basketball at Bishop McGuinness in the late ’90s and early 2000s.

Newspapers have always served a vital role in my life. I learned to read from the sports pages of the Winston-Salem Journal. My first job was as a paperboy at the Journal when I was 11 years old. Years later, my byline was on those same sports pages that I learned to read on, alongside the names of some of my childhood heroes — Lenox Rawlings, Dan Collins, Dan Kibler, Bill Cole, John Dell, and Mason Linker — among others.

I’ve had the chance to cover an abundance of games and people who play them through my various journalism endeavors over the years. This ranges from start-up field hockey programs at West Forsyth High School to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, NBA playoffs and U.S. Open golf.

Perhaps my greatest journalistic thrill was becoming the first editor of the Journal’s “SportsXtra” section, where we featured athletes from all the high schools in Forsyth County. It was a fun challenge each week and a tremendous gift to meet and talk to so many coaches, athletics  administrators and students at every school and an absolute pleasure to share their stories with our readers.

I hope to do the same in my new role and have a few new ideas that you will see rolled out in the next couple of weeks.

Enough about me, however. I want to learn all about you. I want to absorb all there is to absorb in this area and bring that to light. It helps that I have two daughters, Gillian, age 17, and Gabriella, age 14, who attended or currently attend Clemmons Middle School and Clemmons Elementary. That’s my natural tie to this community. Along with my wife, Gina, who is a speech therapist in the Winston-Salem Forsyth County Schools, we live a hop, skip and a jump from the Courier office.

And there are a few other connections I have in the area because of my previous involvement with the Courier. I want to see those existing branches grow even longer — and stronger.

I always welcome story ideas and encourage you to pass those along. If we have messed up, I also encourage you to please make us aware of it. Keep us honest and accountable to you. We want this to be the best publication it can be, and we need your help to make that happen.

I’m up for the challenge and I welcome the opportunity.

I look forward to shining a light on this community through the pages of this paper. And I look forward to meeting and hearing from you as we move along.

Thanks for reading.

Marc Pruitt is editor of the Clemmons Courier. Contact him at marc.pruitt@clemmonscourier.net.