On Saturday, I celebrate my 40th birthday.
Like many years, my plans are low key to non-existent. As an introvert, I don’t make a big deal out of birthdays. I think last year it was cake with friends during a gaming session. I have a board game this year I’m waiting until my birthday weekend to crack open again.
I think the weirdest choice I made for celebrating a birthday was for my 27th when I chose to go to the Spam Museum because I had never been before and it was roughly two hours away from Algona. Why for my 27th? I don’t know. It wasn’t a landmark year. Just seemed fitting for that type of trek. I had some family decide to make the trip up from Tipton to Algona to come with me and we made a day of it. It was lowkey fun and enlightening on a dish I’ve eaten far too often.
As I’m sitting here contemplating 40, I have now been involved in journalism for more than half of my life, 18 years of that professionally. Granted, the first two years in high school classes and an online publication were very rough in the inverted pyramid and scope of stories we were covering. But for three and a half years in college, I was part of the layout team of the newspaper, as well as writing stories for the Trumpet. Also spent two summers interning at the Tipton Conservative.
From there, I worked 10 years in Algona and I’m now in my eighth year this July in the Mount Vernon and Lisbon communities as a reporter and now editor.
It’s a profession I love because quite frankly, no week is ever the same. Sure, there’s some of the same festivals and community events, graduations and celebrations that pop up, but the photos and stories from each always turns out different. Maybe it’s something you learned the last time you photographed an event, or maybe it’s the camera you’re using now.
So here’s to another decade of continuing in this profession. In telling the stories in these communities that matter.
And on some days like this Saturday, it may just be with cake for no other reason then I wanted cake.