I’m city editor of the Shelbyville (Tenn.) Times-Gazette, part of the Rust Communications group of newspapers. Views expressed on my site and in my blog are mine alone, however. I also have a blog at the T-G’s web site.

My journalism-related awards include a first-place award in 2003 for non-deadline reporting among small daily newspapers from the Tennessee Associated Press Managing Editors, a third place award in 2005 and a second place in 2006 from the Inland Press Association for feature stories among small newspapers. I’m even prouder, however, of a personal column about my Mountain T.O.P. experiences that earned me a second place award in the 1998 University of Tennessee / Tennessee Press Association awards.

On two different occasions, I was a contestant on “Top Card,” a game show on what was then called The Nashville Network. Both times, I won my game, failed to win the big grand prize, and then lost the next day when I came back as returning champion.

I had better luck on the public radio program “Whad’ya Know,” winning the “Whad’ya Know Quiz.”

I speed-wrote a novel in November 2004 as part of National Novel Writing Month. I started out on NaNoWriMo in 2005, but wasn’t satisfied enough with my story to continue, and so I dropped out after a few days. In 2006, I was busy with a play. I won NaNoWriMo again in 2007.