By Staff
I can't wait to say, "I knew Andy when…"
I don't have children of my own, but I expect running a newsroom is similar in some ways to parenting.
At the Niles Daily Star – an all-local, community newspaper – we get our reporters and photographers at the very beginning of their careers.
Typically, we keep the good ones 18 months to two years before they are ready to venture off on their own.
We certainly have had some good ones.
Please allow me a few paragraphs to brag.
David Keim came to Niles out of Ohio University, journalism degree in hand.
Long-time Daily Star readers will recall his incredible columns and news stories from the early 1990s.
Today, he's an award-winning Scripps journalist and assistant managing editor at the Knoxville (Tenn.) News-Sentinel.
Jason Wambsgans began work as a photographer at the Niles Daily Star, his first job after graduating from Central Michigan University.
He was with us for more than three years and produced some of the best photos ever taken in Niles.
Today, he's a staff photographer for the Chicago Tribune, traveling the globe shooting photos for that newspaper.
Last year, his editors nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize.
Many will remember Elizabeth Conley. Fresh out of Michigan State University, she and her young son, Caleb, moved to Niles, where she started her first job as a Niles Daily Star photographer.
Today, she's an award-winning photojournalist for The Detroit News.
Jim Sergent came to us for his first full-time job after graduating from DePauw University.
For several years, he worked as the editor of our weekly newspaper, which serves Cassopolis and Edwardsburg.
Today, he's in charge of the design of the Money section of USA Today.
I hired them all and I'm darn proud of it.
Raising them right is a tough job, but I think we're pretty good at it here.
Dave Perozek, a Vanderbilt University graduate who came here for his first job out of college, made his mark reporting on Niles Community Schools.
That led him to a job as education writer in Elyria, Ohio.
Today, he's editorial page editor there.
Shortly after leaving us, he wrote to tell me that when he graduated from college, he struggled to choose between going to graduate school or getting some work experience.
As it turns out, he said his experience working at the Niles Daily Star was like going to a real-world graduate school in terms of how it prepared him for work in a bigger newsroom in a bigger community.
Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems the good ones are fewer and farther between.
When you get a good one, you know it quickly. Andy Hamilton is one of the good ones.
His last day at work as a Niles Daily Star reporter was Friday.
The good ones do more than work at our newspaper.
They become part of our community. Andy certainly did that.
He truly loved living in Niles.
He became involved with Big Brothers Big Sisters and helped with the promotions committee downtown.
He leaves us to return to school to earn his master's degree and to live closer to his long-time girlfriend, who is in nursing school in the Grand Rapids area.
I'd love to take credit for finding and hiring Andy, but I can't.
That belongs to Marcia Steffens.
I saw her start to tear up on Friday when someone mentioned Andy was writing his last Niles Daily Star story.
I knew how she felt. Good job, Marcia. You should be very proud.
I can only imagine how parents feel when they first send their children off into the big, cruel world all alone.
It must be a little like losing someone of Andy's caliber. It's a bittersweet feeling.
His work has meant so much to our newspaper and we're going to miss him terribly.
At the same time, we're eager to see the many things he will surely accomplish in his career.
I'm sure Andy Hamilton's career will equal that of the best we've "graduated."
I can't wait to say, "I knew Andy when…"
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