by John Davis

Created on: December 13, 2008

The summer I was turning 18 and heading for college, I went to work at a small-town weekly newspaper. The business was located in a small concrete-block building just off Main Street, but it was still visible to passers-by who were frequenting downtown. Outside the office, there stood two proud blue boxes, loaded with that week's edition.

The editor was a middle-aged gentleman by the name of Buzz Killingsworth. Even at a fairly young age, I thought it was funny to have a name like "Buzz" if you were in the news business. Mr. Killingsworth, or Mr. K, as he was known to staffers, had been around our small Florida town of Wasahatchee his entire life, except for those four years he spent at the University of Florida.

People in town knew Mr. K anywhere he went - weekly Lions Club or Rotary Club meetings, church on Sunday, the local diner - wherever he happened to be at the time, he seemed to greeted with a chorus of "Hi Buzz" or "Hey there, Mr. K." Realizing my boss's renown around our community, I was grateful when he decided to take me under his proverbial wing that summer before I started journalism school. Little did I know what a vast contrast there would be between the worlds of big daily papers and the rustic, run-down building where I started my 10-year career.

My first gig was spent shooting pictures of an overturned tractor trailer that had lost its load on north Highway 17, just outside of town. The driver was uninjured, but what a sight the wreck made: Oranges spread all over the acre surrounding the truck, and the big metal rig itself was resting uneasily on its passenger side with dents, scrapes, and dings punctuating its body.

Retrieving my 35 millimeter camera, I shot picture after picture, getting different angles, different perspectives, and a broad range of viewpoints to please Mr. K. I asked state troopers on scene what had happened and who was involved, and while they eyed my 18-year-old frame suspiciously, they gave me the information I needed. My persistence was rewarded, as the picture landed at the bottom right of the front page with a caption or "cutline" written also by me.

So went my first journalistic experience. The summers that followed, when I was in college, Mr. K employed me part-time, and I was fortunate enough to cover a broad range of events. Whether it was a house fire or a worker protest, Buzz was kind enough to send me so that I could gain needed experience. Even after all these years, however, the most valuable lesson I learned from that first job was: If you're going to be the editor of a small-town weekly, you better get connected with your audience as much as possible. Today, Mr. K remains the respected editor and publisher of The Weekly Banner, and in years to come, he has plans to pass it on to his son, also a journalist. Wasahatchee is a better place thanks to the Killingsworth family, and their commitment to community newspapering.

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