061224_GYS_2024_WEB

2O2 4 – 2O2 5 GU I D E to Y E L LOW S P R I NG S 77 Miami Township. If there’s an issue that extends beyond the boundaries of the local community, News writers aim to connect that issue to local voices or concerns. This approach isn’t typical: Many smalltown weeklies, challenged with producing a regular paper on shrinking budgets, fill space with generic press releases or columns related to national news. “The News gets those press releases, too, but we don’t use them — we didn’t during my time, anyway, and I see no evidence of change,” Chiddis- ter said. “That gives the News a local focus that many small papers don’t have.” Chiddister’s inroad into jour- nalistic work was, perhaps, less traditional than many burgeon - ing reporters. She was a writer who’d just earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in fiction from the prestigious Iowa Writers’ Workshop, when she moved to the village in 1981. She wasn’t a journalist, though — at least, not yet. In 1983, after responding to an ad in the News seeking a reporter, Chiddister was hired by then-editor Don Wallis. He told her that five people had applied for the job, and she was the only one with a creative writing degree, rather than a journalism degree. “He never did say exactly why he preferred that,” Chidister said. “I think he was maybe looking for a more out- of-the-box perspective, a less traditional journalist slant on things.” She added: “But Wallis taught me how to report — mainly organizing information, putting the important stuff at the beginning and following a narrative. He was a good teacher.” Chiddister’s trajectory is similar to many of those whose names have been on the News’ masthead over the years. News reporters have grown from writers of many stripes — but the important thing, Chiddister said, is that writers have been interested in the village and in learning how to distill its many comings and goings into a collection of paragraphs, week after week. “Most of us have had a lot of in-depth knowledge of other topics, and then we kind of put journalism on top of that — there was already an interest in the big, wide world for our writers,” she said. Having only been in town a few years when she was hired, Chiddister said working at the News helped her get to know the town better and, in some ways, connect with the community more deeply. After her daughter Hallie was born, she began writing a column, “A Walk in the Village,” which chronicled the walks she would take through Yellow Springs with her young daugh- ter. Those walks — taken, by necessity, at a toddler’s pace, with observations often made from a toddler’s vantage point — revealed small parts of the village she then shared with readers who, like her, might otherwise have overlooked them. “I think I did one column on alleys because I was exploring alleys with this little person and she was close to the ground; one time it was about swings in Yellow Springs,” she said. “I saw things I’d never seen before.” At the same time, Chiddister said she was amazed at how big Yellow Springs felt, despite its size: She and her fellow reporters might cover a group walking through the village as it traversed the country to bring awareness to a social justice issue, or an Antioch College professor earning a Fulbright Fellowship to study overseas. “It was like the world was here in a way I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t been cover- ing it,” she said. “I loved the sense of expansiveness in town.” In 2006, Chiddister became the editor of the News. Becoming editor was never an ambition she held, she said, and she thought she’d stay in the position maybe a year, aiding the News in a transition in ownership — but she ended up filling the role for 12 years. One of the things Chid- dister said she was proudest of during her tenure as editor was the News’ coverage of the closure of Antioch Col - lege in 2007 and 2008. The announcement of the closure from the college’s then-gov- erning institution, Antioch Uni - versity, stunned the commu- nity, she said, and left villagers with a lot of questions. “My first response was, ‘Oh, the big papers will have an interest in this, like Columbus and Dayton” — and maybe it was because it was the recession, and big papers were Your place for cool treats and tasty eats! OPEN DAILY! 101 S. WALNUT ST., YELLOW SPRINGS, OH WWW.YSCORNERCONE.COM • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK! NOON–8:3O PM MARCH–OCTOBER C. Baker Plumbing Services &Drain Cleaning LLC We are here for all your plumbing needs, commercial & residential OPEN 24/7 CRAIG BAKER Reg# 010284 937-917-3155 • S E R V I N G T H E M I AM I VA L L E Y •