Happy birthday, Amy Lamb!

In 22 years in journalism, I only hired one reporter three times.

The first time I hired Amy Lamb, who is celebrating a birthday today, she was a junior at Lamar High School. I never thought to ask her if she had a driver's license, just naturally assuming she was 16 years old since most juniors in high school are. Amy has always been a bit ahead of the game, however. Since she was only 15, she had to have her dad drive her to some of the events she covered. I did not know about that until later.

Amy was not limited to school events. Just like the other teen reporters I hired at the Lamar Democrat and Carthage Press, Amy was given opportunities to show her range and even at age 15, she had no limits.

After she got her driver's license, she did a feature on an unsolved murder in Jerico Springs that was both informative and insightful. She worked for me for two years at the Democrat.

When I was promoted to managing editor of The Carthage Press in December 1993, the first person I brought on board was Amy, by this time a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism, to serve as lifestyles editor.

She worked two stints in that position between 1993 and 1998, turning in award-winning work both times. She redefined lifestyles coverage, adding a generous dose of hard news coverage.

Amy won awards for her coverage of those who sexually abuse children, including interviewing one such offender at state prison. She also earned honors for her coverage of the murder of eight-year-old Douglas Ryan Ringler of Carthage and for her in-person coverage of the execution of the man who murdered Harold and Melba Wampler of Jasper.

Amy left the world of journalism in 1998, if memory serves me correctly, and readers have been the poorer for it. I will always wonder if she ended up leaving because her editor was driving her crazy, but I would say it was more likely that she left for the reason that most reporters leave the field...you don't make enough money to live on.

Amy is doing well now working at the Wal-Mart corporate headquarters in Bentonville, Ark. I was lucky enough to work with her three times. I worked with a number of excellent young reporters over my two decades in the business. None of them wrote better features than Amy Lamb.

Happy Birthday, Amy!