Brooke Pyle with Court of Appeals

I have not been in touch with my former Carthage Press reporter Brooke Pyle for a quite a while, but I was not surprised to hear that she is doing well professionally.
The alumni magazine at her alma mater William Jewell indicates she has completed law school and taken a position with the Missouri Southern District Court of Appeals in Springfield.
Brooke worked for me during the summer of 1998, at a time when Ron Graber and I were the only two veteran reporters on the Press staff. Brooke, who had just graduated from Carthage Senior High School, Jana Blankenship, who had just received her diploma from Webb City High School and Missouri Southern student Marla Hinkle filled in while we tried to fill in our staff.
We had a number of major events that had to be covered during that time, including Janet Kavandi's space flight and the KOM Reunion.
Those three were able to keep things going until we hired Jo Ellis, John Hacker and Rick Rogers in the late summer and for nine months after that, until John and I were sent packing, we had the best staff any small newspaper in this area has had in recent memory.
Brooke had started her days at The Press taking phone calls from 5 to 6:15 p.m. for people who had not received their newspapers. After 6:15, she delivered the missed papers. She always enjoyed photography and she was a good writer, though that was never something she much cared for doing.
What I remember most about that summer was that no matter how lousy a day everyone was having, when Brooke entered The Carthage Press building, she always had a smile on her face and before too long we were wondering what we were so grumpy about.
It's great to see that she is doing well.