B
efore becoming a news reporter,
the phrase ‘happy work envi-
ronment” seemed like a foreign
language to me, but that’s exactly
how I would describe my time at The
Union-Recorder. After working in the
field of education as a teacher for close to
10 years, I decided to take a break from
teaching to pursue another career field
that would provide me another chance
to serve the public in a different capaci-
ty, while not losing my hair from added
tension and anxiety. Don’t get me wrong,
I loved being an educator, but by 2012, I
was burned out and in desperate need of
a job where I could just breathe.
Some people may think I was walking
out of one hectic environment right into
a more stressful situation, but that wasn’t
the case with The Union-Recorder. My
time at the newspaper did more than just
give me a new career direction; it also
gave me a peace that I hadn’t felt at work
in a long time. We were a close-knit com-
munity of reporters and there were times
when my sides would hurt from laughing
so much. From the first day I set foot in
the newsroom I felt genuine sincerity
from each and every employee I came in
contact with. There was a camaraderie
between the news reporters and it didn’t
take long for me to feel the rich warmth
of co-worker friendship. I can remember
the first day I sat at my desk in my small
cubicle I breathed a sigh of relief—some-
thing I hadn’t done in a very long time.
But of course, it wasn’t a slow-paced
job. There were deadlines that needed
to be met in a timely manner. I was the
crime and education reporter so my two
beats always kept me on the go. Crimi-
nals are not set on your work schedule
so the unexpected always kept me on my
toes. And somewhere between school
board meetings, spelling bees, science
fair projects, traffic accidents, armed
robberies, and house fires, I had to find
time to eat lunch and give birth to at least
three news articles before deadline. But
through all that chaos, I found content-
ment.
We were a family and till this day, I
still keep in touch with my fellow news
writers, even though we all have moved
on to different Public Relations careers.
In fact, it was our time we spent at The
Union-Recorder, which helped us get to
an elevated level of communicating that
opened new doors for us. I will never
forget the day Milledgeville Police Chief
Dray Swicord called me to his office and
offered a Public Information Officer
(PIO) position to me. He expressed to
me that he saw my potential to be a
great PIO through the fair and unbiased
work I did as a crime reporter. It was
the encouragement I received from my
managing editor, Natalie Davis Linder,
that helped push me to do a great job
reporting. Although we are the same age,
she became a wonderful mentor for me.
Overall, my experience at The
Union-Recorder was a great one. It was
bittersweet when I left the job in 2015 to
enter my PIO position, but I still hold the
memories, the laughs and the good times
deep within the crevices of my heart.
Even though I’ve put in a 4 years as the
police department’s PIO, I can still walk
in to a restaurant and local grocery and
have someone come up to me and say
“aren’t you the Felicia Cummings who
worked at Union-Recorder.” I suppose
some things will never change!
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