CHARLOTTE MAGAZINE
Blind Faith - January 2009 - Charlotte Magazine
He has come more than two thousand miles, through wind, rain, snow. He is within a hundred miles of the end, and he wants to give up. But that's the problem with the 100-Mile Wilderness. You can't quit. You have nowhere to go. The only way to quit is to continue.
- Won 2010 National City and Regional Magazine Award for Personality Profile
- Won 2010 Clarion Award, Magazine Feature Article (Circulation 100,000 or less)
- Won 2010 Green Eyeshade Award, Best-In-Show, Non Daily Print Journalism
The Nurses You Never Want To See - September 2009 - Charlotte Magazine
Nestled inside the labyrinth of hallways, corridors, and nursing stations of Presbyterian Hospital's emergency department is a nondescript exam room. Hand-painted flowers run along the walls from the floor to the ceiling. A large floor-mounted camera sits next to a squat table. There's a lonely clock on another wall, a fake tree in the corner. If you're in here, it's probably the worst day of your life.
- Won 2011 Green Eyeshade Award - Magazine Feature Writing
- Won 2011 Gamma Award - Bronze for Feature Writing
Frayed Pride and Fried Pickles - April 2011 - Charlotte Magazine
Want to make Brian Rowe cry? Ask him about the letter he got a couple years ago, when he was still running The Penguin. This kid, he says, moved here to go to UNC-Charlotte. Real shy guy, this kid. Just socially awkward. And then, he made a friend. They would meet at The Penguin once a week to talk about school and girls and whatever was bothering them. And slowly, the kid realized that he wasn’t so alone after all. He became, he said, the man he is today. With the letter, he included a ten-dollar bill. If you ever see another young college student in The Penguin, he wrote, buy him a beer. On me. “That fucked me up, man,” Rowe says. His eyes tear up. He rocks back and forth on his chair. He takes a drag off his Camel. He needs a moment.Best Friends In Life Are Free - March 2011 - Charlotte Magazine
Playing Dead - September 2011 - Charlotte Magazine
We’ve just lived through the worst season in Charlotte sports history. So, can anyone bring our defeat-drunk zombie fans back to life? Jeremy Markovich interviewed four of Charlotte’s most famous (or infamous) sports figures, took their words and ideas, then set off on a quest to convert an apathetic, undead horde into sports-crazy mortals.
Waiting For The Big One - December 2011 - Charlotte Magazine“How do you not watch the World Series?” says Love, the engineer who grew up down the street. “It’s un-American.”
“Simple,” says Martin with the million-dollar mustache. “I turn the channel.”
Love won’t let it go. Martin gives up. He flicks the TV over to game six.
At 10:01, the alarm goes off.
Searching For The Soul of Stock Car Racing - June 2012 - Charlotte Magazine
I bought a six-pack of Bud Light at the decaying Food King in downtown Rockingham because it was the best beer they had. At 6 p.m. on the Saturday night before the race, Harrington Square was deserted, save the lights stands left over from the race festival the night before. I walked out of the store, down East Washington Street, past the law offices and the workout place and the empty storefronts. I decided to ask somebody where I could get a drink. There was nobody to ask. There was just a town clock chiming and a train horn sounding and a breeze blowing and all of it whirled around and echoed in the empty streets. Except for the race banners hanging on every light post, you would have no idea that tomorrow would be the biggest day in Rockingham in eight years.Let's Go... Hornets? - July 2012 - Charlotte Magazine
It was always a hypothetical: Wouldn’t it be nice to be the Hornets again? rather than We will be the Hornets again. And then, in mid-April, New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson bought his city’s NBA franchise. First order of business? Changing that Hornets name. “We’d like to change it tomorrow,” he said. Suddenly, the hypothetical turned to Holy shit, this could actually happen.
OUR STATE
Carolina Rails - August 2011 - Our State Magazine
Trains are more than mighty. They are time machines. With a glance, they take you back to the era of cabooses, firemen, and coal cars. They are colorful and brash, arriving and departing to a time when getting there was fraught with adventure and hardship. The tracks themselves have their own personality — steel rails and creosote-soaked railroad ties running through Blue Ridge tunnels and across eastern rivers on trestles. The W-Line hugs the Broad River. The A-Line goes straight over hills. On Old Fort Mountain, the rails wind around the slope in such a way that, on your way down, you can look straight up from the locomotive and see the rear of your train above you. Trains don’t just take you to a destination. For some, they are the destination.Big Mountain Love Story - October 2011 - Our State Magazine
George and Hanneke bought this land 21 years ago from a real estate agent who didn’t think to show it to them because it wasn’t worth much. Back then, it was just a neglected farmhouse surrounded by a sheath of brush and a tangle of weeds and vines in the middle of 22 forested acres. It took five years of searching, from Pickens, South Carolina, to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, from Boone to Robbinsville, to find this place. It was perfect.
Tar Heel Town: Rockingham - January 2012 - Our State Magazine
It is akin to many other North Carolina towns, quiet and a shell of its former self. But here, there is something you cannot see, stirring not on the sidewalks or streets but in conversations and hearts. There is hope. Hope for rebirth.
Tar Heel Town: Highlands - April 2012 - Our State Magazine
Downtown is the place where about 15,000 people come up over the hills from their country clubs and second homes and compress themselves into a three-block nucleus of restaurants, stores, and churches. People walk up to each other, walk next to each other, talk about work or real estate or their spa appointments. They pet each other’s dogs. They wave at people on the other side of the street. Everybody knows each other. How can this be?
Tar Heel Town: Rockingham - January 2012 - Our State Magazine
It is akin to many other North Carolina towns, quiet and a shell of its former self. But here, there is something you cannot see, stirring not on the sidewalks or streets but in conversations and hearts. There is hope. Hope for rebirth.
Tar Heel Town: Highlands - April 2012 - Our State Magazine
Downtown is the place where about 15,000 people come up over the hills from their country clubs and second homes and compress themselves into a three-block nucleus of restaurants, stores, and churches. People walk up to each other, walk next to each other, talk about work or real estate or their spa appointments. They pet each other’s dogs. They wave at people on the other side of the street. Everybody knows each other. How can this be?
Imaginary Lines - July 2012 - Our State Magazine
When I stand at the water’s edge with my toes in the surf, three miles out is as far as I can see. That’s not good enough. It’s never been good enough. When I was a kid, I dug holes, and somebody at some point told me that if I dug deep enough, I would eventually arrive in China. Most kids leave it at that. I didn’t. Where, exactly, would I come out? Near Beijing? Shanghai? Would I be upside down? And how deep would the hole need to be? I needed something more exact than just China. The questions tugged on my young mind as I kept moving dirt around with my dad’s shovel.The last time I was in Carolina Beach, I checked. Digging a hole on the beach wouldn’t put me in China, but somewhere at the soggy bottom of the southern Indian Ocean. Then I looked out at the water. I had to know what was out there.
WCNC
Big Foot Spotted In North Carolina, If You Can Believe It - March 2011 - WCNC.com
Thomas Byers got four seconds of video. Blurry, dark video. He saw Bigfoot for a minute. Tops. The Sasquatch was around seven feet tall, 300 pounds, with yellow teeth. It left behind six-toed footprints. It gave off the stench of decay, and it also had something that’s not found on most gorilla costumes. “It was very clear to both of us that it was a male,” Byers said, fumbling around for the most polite words. “I mean, you could see, I don’t want to say, trying to think, uh, you could see its private parts."
If you pull off of U.S. 321 and turn south on to Startown Road, out there, in the middle of a field, behind some transplanted trees and a man-made berm, across from fallow farm fields ringed by barbed wire fences, is a big white building which, if everything goes according to plan, will make your PC disappear. You can’t even see the thing from the road. Guards stand sentry over two entrances, although the real way into this place is through your iPad, iPhone or iPod.
Charlotte First Bike Sharing Stations Arriving Uptown - July 2012 - WCNC.com
“This right here is cool,” said Larry Davis, who was eyeing the new kiosk at 7th street station. “You’ve got easy access to the train, the bars and ImaginOn.”
More:Charlotte First Bike Sharing Stations Arriving Uptown - July 2012 - WCNC.com
“This right here is cool,” said Larry Davis, who was eyeing the new kiosk at 7th street station. “You’ve got easy access to the train, the bars and ImaginOn.”
Is That Charlotte? Or Is That Shanghai?
Border Wars: The Fight Over North and South Carolina
Charlotte's Identity Crisis
The Last Night at Sir Edmond Halley's - a Eulogy
What's lurking beneath the surface in Hickory?
