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Hey, I’m back.
Yes, in a full-circle moment, I am taking over as sports editor for the Vedette and the Manteno Vedette.
This is where my journalism career began when I was a student at Manteno High School in the 1970s.
It all started when someone wrote a letter to the editor of the Manteno News wondering why there was no coverage of the Panthers in the paper.
In his response, the editor wrote that they’d like to include sports coverage and invited anyone interested to apply for the job. I did, and here we are, more than 50 years later.
The profession, and the business, has changed plenty over that time. The rise of the internet, which was still decades in the future when I started, did a number on print journalism at every level from the biggest daily newspapers to the smallest weeklies.
But the Vedette is still here and the Manteno Vedette has succeeded the Manteno News. I’m still around, too.
In those early days, I thought I knew more about journalism than I actually did. But writing is like a muscle — the more you exercise it, the stronger it gets.
I went on to other jobs, including down the road in Kankakee for 12 years, and around the country, in southern California, Texas, Tennessee, Kentucky and Indiana. I covered a World Series and a Super Bowl, among many other assignments.
More recently, I’ve been a freelance journalist for a variety of outlets. Last September, I took over as sports editor for four publications of Southwest Regional Publishing, which also owns the Vedette and Manteno Vedette.
Now I’m excited to be back in the area and telling more stories like how Manteno three-sport athlete Ava Peterson earned a spot on the Academic All-State Team.
I stopped by my old school to talk to Ava and her coach, Josh Carlile, and drove around town afterward. I moved away in 1982, but my folks stayed a while longer and my mom moved back in the early 2000s. So the roots are deep.
It’s hard to miss what’s changed. The house I grew up in is gone, as is the original Manteno High School —which was the junior high when I went there. The town has grown, and so has the current high school, which opened when I was a junior.
But the memories remain, and now I’m ready to make some new ones.
There’s nothing like finding and telling great stories of local athletes. If you see me at a game, please stop by and say hello. And if you have an idea for a story, please drop me an email at: sports@regionalpublishing.com. You also can follow me on X; my handle is @mikeclarkpreps.
Whether you’ve been following my coverage since the old days or this is the first time we’ve connected, thank you for reading and supporting local journalism. I’ll never take it for granted.
The post Mike Clark: You really can go home again appeared first on Southwest Regional Publishing.
