When I was 5 years old I decided that I wanted to be a news anchor when I grew up.

That was always the dream.

I loved watching the Today Show when I was younger – I thought Katie Couric, Ann Curry, and Natalie Morales were amazing. Their abilities to so eloquently and professionally share the most heartbreaking of lows as well as the most gleeful highs had me in awe.

I always knew I wanted to be a journalist – I never once considered another career as I moved through elementary, middle and high school.

When I was a junior in high school, I began taking dual-enrollment classes through Holyoke Community College (HCC). I wanted to get a jump-start on college, so I enrolled in a few English courses. I figured English was my strongest subject, so I could try to keep up with the college kids while still in high school.

I’ll never forget attending my high school creative writing class during my senior year in 2012 – one of my favorite teachers, Mr. Kozikowski, who knew my writing well, called me up to his desk. He said something along the lines of, “Payton – what happened? This story is fantastic – your writing has improved so much!” I gave the credit to the English classes I was taking at HCC – I was being pushed out of my comfort zone, and I was learning a lot.

When I finished high school, I enrolled at HCC full-time to earn my Associate in Arts and Science. There, I focused on communication–based subjects: journalism and mass communications, specifically, as well as all of the other general education courses necessary to graduate.

As I began to go through my first few journalism courses at HCC in 2013 and 2014, I realized that I loved to write.

Of course I always knew I enjoyed writing, but I had never considered it for a career. Bearing in mind the number of times I heard the phrase, “print is dead,” the fact that my aspirations of being a news anchor were wavering was unexplainable to some.

I had a professor at HCC, Fred Cooksey, who taught one of my journalism courses. His passion for the subject was clear, and I could feel myself becoming a stronger writer as I took his course. One day he pulled me aside and asked what my future plans were – where I was planning to transfer to after HCC, and what I thought I wanted to do for a career.

At this point I knew I didn’t want to be a news anchor anymore – I had fallen in love with writing. The ability that a print-journalist has to – in theory – tell the whole story is second to none. One cannot often share “all sides” to a story in a two minute or less TV news package.

I shared with Cooksey the local colleges that I was considering applying to. He recommended a few private colleges that weren’t on my original list. I appreciated the faith he showed in me and my writing – I haven’t forgotten the kindness he, along with numerous other professors at HCC, including my advisor Joanne Kostides, showed me. The time I spent in Holyoke at HCC was one I look back on with much admiration.

As Managing Editor G. Michael Dobbs noted in his column this week, our company is swimming against the proverbial tide when it comes to newspapers in this country. We’ve had more expansions than I can count in the last two years, and there are more to come.

I feel so lucky for the string of events that led me to where I am today. My time at Holyoke Community College made me realize my love for writing, Professor Cooksey encouraged me to apply to other schools, which led to my time at Western New England University where I met a host of wonderful professionals in the industry, including Professor Brenda Garton–Sjoberg who encouraged me to apply to an assistant editor opening at Reminder Publishing nearly four years ago.

I look forward to our continued effort to bring the local news that matters to our readers' homes. Who would have thought that five years after I graduated from HCC I’d be back in Holyoke working on a newspaper for the community?

And to think that I was told print is dead.