Community journalism is news media that focuses on a particular community, often defined by a geographic area or a specific interest or group. The Town of Newport was officially incorporated in 1866, athough the settlement on the banks of the Newport River had existed long prior by the names of "Bell's Corner" and "Shepardsville".
The area that is today the Town of Newport was a strategic location during the Civil War because its location on the Newport River provided a water route for war supplies of lumber, tar, pitch, and other commodities to the ports in Beaufort. So much so that the Confederate army established winter quarters on the banks of the Newport River in the winter of 1860. The camp changed hands many times during the fighting and was occupied by both Confederate and Union armies during the war. A Civil War historic museum called "Newport Barracks" exists on Chatham Street in downtown Newport, rich with information about that time period in American history. Boasting a population of fewer than 5,000 residents, the Town of Newport is a small bedroom community with a Council-Manager government, proud of it's history from the War of Independence to today.
My path to technology was inadvertently born in 1989 when I was pulled from my Army Infantry unit in Germany and told I was being reassigned to a school to learn computer-based logistics management. Up until that time, I had no experience with computers or how they worked. At that time there were hardly any "personal computers", and "laptops" were as large as a suitcase.
My interest in journalism further developed when I moved to the Crystal Coast in 2015 and experienced the destruction we often experience year after year during hurricane season. I passed the FCC Technician exam in 2021, passed the FCC General exam the next month, and passed the FCC Amateur Extra exam two months later. I currently operate under the FCC Amateur Extra call sign "KD3Y" and can often be found on the forty-meter high frequency band and the Carteret County local 2-meter band. I passed the ARRL exam and became a FCC Volunteer Examiner in 2022. During our hurricanes on the Southern Outer Banks, I volunteer at the Emergency Operations Center in Morehead City, NC (communications support) and am assigned as needed at hurricane shelters, fire departments, or elsewhere to pass communications by radio when natural disasters take down the power grid, the WiFi, and cellular service in Carteret County. I also volunteer with the North Carolina Office of Emergency Management and FEMA when needed.
One of my fondest memories from my childhood is a project from Charles Kuralt done in the 60's and 70's called "On the road with Charles Kuralt". CBS sponsored the project and it aired on "The CBS Evening News with Walter Kronkite" each night. Kuralt spent twenty-five years driving America's backroads "just to see what he could see". Kuralt and his three man crew covered over one million miles in his motor home; they wore out six before he was done. Back in those days one of my duties was to get up and change the channel on our big console TV in the evenings when my dad directd, after he came in from working in the tobacco, corn, and soybean fields. Back then, here in rural North Carolina, we had Channels 5, 7, 9, and 11. Later on when I was a teenager we got channel 22 out of Greenville, North Carolina. "Streaming TV" and remote controls were not a thing back then. But a magazine called "The TV Guide" was, and it was found lying on the coffee table in the living room of about every American household in those days.
"Interstate highways allow you to
drive coast to coast, without seeing anything"
~Charles Kuralt
I attended MIT University in Cambridge in the Knight School of Journailsm Program in October of 2021 and the NBCU Academy for Journalism in New York in September of 2024, where I learned the essentials of professional journalism. My previous education is a degree in Information Systems Technology, with concentrations in Database Management and Network Security from Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, NC, North Carolina Weslayan University at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro, NC, and the University of Mount Olive in Mount Olive, NC. I also hold a Doctor of Divinity, honoris causa, from the Christian Leaders Institute, an ABHE (Association for Biblical Higher Education) university in Michigan. Contact me for information on officiating your wedding on North Carolina's Crystal Coast. My services are very affordable!
I am a certified Master SCUBA diver and enjoy SCUBA diving the wrecks off North Carolina's Crystal Coast. I learned to play the banjo from Barney Rogers, a songwriter, instructor, and musician in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2012 and have performed with two small bluegrass bands in the past. I currently pick with Bogue Sound Grass Company, a local blugrass band occasionally.
I look forward to serving Southern Outer Banks News as a free and open service for locals in Carteret County and hope that you will enjoy my media on Rumble,
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