A big thank you to our readers

years, I’ve been lucky enough to work alongside some passionate, driven, and inspiring people in the community I grew up in. Friday marked my last day in that community, and in the Herald newsroom.

Next week I’ll move north to see new places, meet new people, and share different stories.

But I’ll always be the girl from South Canty who would read the Herald in the Opihi College library each day. Seeing my byline in that same paper years later has been one of my proudest moments, and biggest privileges.

From breaking the news about plans to demolish the Hydro Grand Hotel and sitting in a unimog as soldiers checked floodaffected towns, to a missing council loo at Te Moana Gorge that turned out to not be so far away after all, I’ve felt honoured to have shared this region’s stories.

And I’m incredibly grateful to the people who have allowed me to do so.

I’ve also been proud to work with a newsroom full of people who care deeply about informing their community and celebrating its successes.

I’ll miss the guidance, the laughs, and the banter. Being a journalist is not without its challenges.

The industry is facing increasingly uncertain times. Decisions made in boardrooms hundreds of kilometres away have significant effects on regional newsrooms, and journalists are consistently being asked to do more with less.

But it’s also during those darker moments that the community has rallied around its newspaper.

The recent decision by Fairfax to discontinue regional sports reporting was incredibly tough on the Herald newsroom. However, the passion and depth of feeling I encountered from those in our community who fought the decision was heartening not just for me, but for everyone associated with the paper.

So, I’d like to say thank you. And thank you to the people who returned a phone call, a text message, an email.

Thank you to those who guided me, and who later let me guide them. Thank you to those who taught me what it is to be not just a reporter, but a journalist.

Every time I picked up the phone, I was doing so on behalf of 30-odd thousand of you.

I hope I did you proud.