I probably won't be writing a column on a weekly basis . but since I'm the new guy in town, I thought I'd introduce myself.

I'm an East Texas guy, born in Navarro County. I'm 48-yearsold and a widower, having lost my wife three years ago. I've been in the newspaper business 16 years, beginning at the Kerens Tribune in 1993 and spending the past 15 years and change at the Corsicana Daily Sun.

Covering Texas sports is nothing new to me, although I've spent most of my career covering government, law enforcement, courts and politics. The Kerens Bobcats were my sports beat for most of 10 years or so . from 1993 to about 2003. And I covered sports for the Daily Sun fulltime for 2 years as first a sportswriter and then as the sports editor in 1999 and 2000.

I told editor Bill Woodall during my interview for this job, that small-town weekly news and sports coverage is more community oriented. It shouldn't be hard-hitting investigative journalism. Hey, we're all neighbors here. It's a different approach.

Weekly newspapers, in my opinion, have a very large responsibility. We record the happenings and history of small communities; from births, deaths and weddings, to graduations, events, and our kids in their school extracurricular activities.

None of the bigger newspapers, and certainly not any of the TV stations, is going to do that . so here we are. Every week it gets written, printed and distributed to our readers. And that is the recorded history of our area.

So, I'm looking forward to my new day-todo "rounds" around here. Most of them will be on the BISD campus and at Chandler City Hall, along with the Chandler Police Department.

My e-mail address here is sports@cbstatesman. com and I hope everyone will feel free to drop me a line with tips on sports stories . or even to let me know I misspelled their kids' name.

Gotta get those right!