Continued from the blog front ...
Corny, right? Okay, I can live with that, but I know what we did and where we came from and the fact that 40 and 50 and 60 years after we've moved away, we still communicate and "stay together."
Those are the roots. Dad raised cotton, wheat, oats and soybeans for a wage and we lived in a rattletrap company house. Mom ran the company store and was always there for my sister and me.
I began my newspaper career as a 10-year-old, when Mom let me have access to a black Remington portable typewriter to create newspapers.
My first newspaper job was at the Pulitzer Prize winning Delta Democrat-Times as a high school junior. I continued while I attended college at Delta State and, once I let school, I became a sports writer at the Jackson (Miss.) Daily News and covered Ole Miss in the College World Series, Ray Guy punt the heck out of the football as well as throwing no-hitters and a variety of other sports.
I let Jackson for Texas — which I dearly loved — and became the sports editor in Harlingen, on the Mexican border. I also worked at newspapers in Childress, Plainview, San Angelo and Big Spring and was recognized by the Texas Senate in 2001 for my work as a newspaperman and community volunteer/activist.
I've also worked at papers in Nebraska, where the "N" on the football helmet stands for "knowledge," in Fayetteville, Ark., where I heard "Woooo, pig, sooooie!" in my sleep and Thomasville, NC, where they used to make Thomasville furniture.
I came to southeastern Louisiana exactly one week before Hurricane Katrina hit and spent the next 18 months rebuilding a newspaper as its editor/publisher.
In 2008, I was named Louisiana "Investigative Reporter of the Year" and in 2009, the newspaper I headed was named Louisiana's "Newspaper of the Year" and the American Correctional Society's "National Newspaper of the Year."
I left day-to-day newspaper operations in September 2009 and now operate my own newspaper and management consulting business, The Walker Company, LLC.
I am a head-and-neck cancer survivor of 61/2 years and am active in the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life and believe we should always, always, always strive to make a community better because we spent time there.
I am blessed to be married to my wife, Stephanie, a register nurse/educator, and chase trains and read historical markers as a hobby.
Thanks for stopping by!
