In January 2004 I was hired as a "stringer," or freelance reporter by the Advertiser Democrat, a weekly newspaper serving the Oxford Hills region of Western Maine (circulation: 7,000). I was initially hired to cover the town of Buckfield. Minot was soon added to my beat and, within six months, I was hired as a full-time staff reporter. Although I covered nearly all 18 towns served by the Advertiser at one time or another, my primary beats included Buckfield, Norway, Oxford, Paris and West Paris, as well as SADs 17 and 39. I worked at the Advertiser until February 2010.
All work posted to the Morgue from this period was published in the Advertiser. Unfortunately, I did not save some of my early work, while a flash drive on which I saved articles published from 2005 to 2008 appears to have been infected by the Borg, with all data assimilated to some corner of the etherverse that I am unable to access. These works will be keystroked in by hand from hard copies of the paper . . . over time. Perhaps, a very long time.
I will not be posting ancillary work I did for the Advertiser, including weekly meeting lists, real estate transaction lists, cop logs, and Person on the Street columns. For several years I was responsible for writing the paper's weekly editorial. I am as-yet undecided on whether or not I will post these.
For the next year I was largely out of the newspaper game, although I did produce several pieces for special insert sections of the Sun Journal, a daily newspaper serving Western and Central Maine (circulation: 35,000). Stories dated between March and Dec. 2010 are from the Sun Journal.
In April 2011 I was hired as a full-time staff reporter by Current Publishing to be the sole reporter on The Current, a free weekly newspaper serving Cape Elizabeth, Scarborough and South Portland (circulation: 10,000). I parted ways with the company in Feb. 2014. Most stories from this timeframe were published in the Current. Several were also "twofers," published in one or more of the company's other newspapers, sometimes altered slightly to suit the intended audience. However, all of these "twofers" are labeled only as "The Current," as that was the paper for which I wrote for. That said, I did produce a few stories specifically for other Current publications over the years, including the American Journal, Maine Women, My Generation: Maine, The Village and the Weekly Observer. These stories are labeled accordingly.
Work done for the Current but not posted to the Morgue includes the weekly cop logs, edited press releases, real estate transactions, some photo ops, and a pile of news briefs which I did not save copies of and which were not posted on the paper's website. I may also be missing a few spot news items published only on the web. However, material from a short-lived blog, "Keeping Current" may find its way here, eventually.
In February 2014, I began freelancing work, returning to the Advertiser Democrat to do assigned columns (as before, I won't bother posting the Person on the Street feature here) and the Sun Journal, for more special section assignments.
I also began freelancing for The Sentry, a free weekly newspaper mailed to all homes in Cape Elizabeth and South Portland, published by Mainely Media LLC (circulation: 13,500).
All stories posted to the Morgue are dated to when they appeared in print. Many appeared on the web a day or two before the print edition, or sometimes a few days after, if at all. However, it is worth noting that the "print dates" are based on the issue for which I initially submitted the story. In a few cases, the story may have been held on overset for one or more weeks. I have not bothered to go back and confirm exact print dates for each of the several hundred stories posted here. Another exception is the Sun Journal material as, in many cases, I am not certainly exactly when the special insert ran in the paper. These stories are dated either to the web publication, or the submission date in my files.
Once I catch up to present day, material will be added to the Morgue only after it has been up on the publisher's website for 4-6 weeks, depending on apparent traffic.
What else do you need to know about me? I'm a Maine native, with roots going back 10-12 generations on both the maternal and fraternal lines. Born in Waterville, raised in Winslow and Skowhegan, I now live in Sumner with a one-each assortment of dog, cat and wife. Love the dog and wife, not so wild about the cat. I studied public administration at the University of Maine at Augusta although, I have to admit, the better education came from a decade's worth of attending municipal meetings. Between selectboards, town and city councils, planning boards, school boards and a seemingly infinite variety of standing committees, sub committee and ad hoc committees, I think you'd be hard pressed to find one person in the state who has sat through more public meetings over the past 10 years than me. That, by itself, has to be worth some kind of master's degree in eye-glazing jargon wonk.
On a different note, I also am a lifelong collector of comic books and make semi-regular postings, as time allows, to a blog devoted to that subject at shanghalla.blogspot.com.
Duke Harrington
duke.harrington (at) gmail.com
Twitter: @DirigoDuke (personal); @SentryDuke (professional); @Shanghalla (comics)
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