When your children are born you just hope they are healthy and have all their fingers and toes. As they mature you hope for their happiness and success in their chosen career. My son, Richard, was born a normal, healthy child and is on the road to being a successful journalist.

A 1998 Jounalism graduate at Middle Tennessee State University, Richard began his career as a "stringer" for a local newspaper, "The Messenger" in Goodlettsville, Tennessee. Shortly thereafter, he got his first "real job" as a staff reporter for The Columbia Daily Herald, a small daily paper in Maury County, Tennessee.

While working for this paper, Richard won the 1999 award from the Tennessee Press Association for "Best Personal Story." The story concerned our meeting Don Mattingly on the day his jersey was retired at Greer Stadium. A copy of this article is on Don Mattingly's web site and if that link no longer works, here is a local copy.

Richard has recently changed jobs and is now the news editor of The Journal, a weekly newspaper covering Spring Hill and Thompson Station in Williamson County, Tennessee.

Richard is a fine young man and I am very proud of him and his accomplishments. Also he is a New York Yankee and Vanderbilt University fan. Need I say more?