Carving Out a New Path

I came back from this experience energized and reinvigorated. I felt as if my future was wide-open and it was then that I began to re-evaluate just what I wanted out of life. And soon it became apparent that news was no longer it.

"At the end, you think about the beginning

By Natasha Clark
Former Assistant Managing Editor

Six years ago, I walked into the Chicopee Herald office owned by Reminder Publications looking for an internship. Managing Editor G. Michael Dobbs went through my college newspaper clips, asked me about my aspirations and gave me an unpaid position writing articles. I was green. So green I could have doubled as the Incredible Hulk's stunt double.

On my first interview with Womanshelter/Companeras, of which one of their missions is to help women and their families escape abusive environments, I had the audacity to ask for their address to include in my article. You can imagine the silence on the other end of the line, before the woman reminded me that she would not provide that information because these were supposed to be safe havens. I felt like an idiot. It wouldn't be the last time. (There is a reason my siblings refer to me as "the special one.")

But Mike took a chance and later offered me a paid freelance gig reporting on the Longmeadow School Committee and the Hampden-Wilbraham Regional School District. Six years later, I am leaving my beloved position as assistant managing editor.

I grew up at The Reminder. When I came here I was 23 years old with enough water behind my ears to fill two separate buckets. My son was five, Hampden-Wilbraham Superintendent M. Martin O'Shea was assistant principal at Longmeadow High School and Michael Albano was mayor of Springfield. The words "thank you" don't even describe the appreciation I have for our readers. Each week you all called and gave me the privilege of reporting on your communities. I've reported on everything from property rates to budgets to youth in the community making a difference. I learned the importance of accuracy, of building relationships and, most importantly, being the voice of residents.

My leaving is bittersweet. Some of the people I have interviewed have gone on to new places, retired, graduated, even died. I will never forget Kara Gobron. A woman brave in the face of cancer, someone who let me into her battle, her home, and subsequently, what turned out to be the final weeks of her life. I will always remember the local Marines I met miles away in the Mojave Desert who were shipped off to fight in Operation: Iraqi Freedom. Nor will I forget my life-changing five weeks in Thailand. I've interviewed people I could only dream about Dick Gregory, Bill Cosby and Grant Hill. And yet, some of the most memorable interviews I have had have been with town residents doing impossible things because goodness is possible.

I've seen Reminder interns come in and really make a mark for themselves such as Jennifer Sawyer and Rick Sobey. I was there when Bluebird Estates burned to the ground and then was rebuilt from the ground up. I witnessed Merle Safford turn her vision of the Norcross Center into a reality.
I guess, as always, in the end, you think about the beginning. I think of coming into the East Longmeadow headquarters as a nervous young adult yearning to be a writer, and exiting as a woman on the eve of her 30th birthday with more than 300 bylines.

Publishers Chris and Dan Buendo have always given the news department the freedom to continually challenge what a weekly newspaper can do. Because of this freedom, Reminder Publications has carved out a unique niche for itself when it comes to community news.

It is so rare to work for a company where each and every employee not only gives their all, but comes in each day with a smile, a good word and laughter on their lips. I am proud to say I worked with Dr. Paul Gagliarducci, John Claffey, the late Rosalind Clark and E. Jahn Hart in what, I consider, their prime.
I want you all to know, in all sincerity, when I was discovering just who Natasha Clark really was, each conversation, each interview, each laugh and e-mail exchange was shaping me into the woman I am today. I am too afraid to calculate what all of my coffees, bagels and tuna sandwiches at Romito & Sons have actually cost me.
I am better for having met you all, for taking pieces of your lives and transcribing them into stories.
I am proud to say that when I came into my own, I did it at Reminder Publications.
So it is only fitting to end this column with the way my first column ended when I first came on as a staff writer in April 2004 ... 'Dance as if no one were watching, sing as if no one were listening, and live each day as if it were your last.'"