Now I know that many of you are probably expecting another Eastern Townships history tidbit, but unfortunately that’s not the case.
After graduating from Bishop’s University last April with a Bachelor’s in History and Global Studies, I wasn’t sure about what step I wanted to take next.
Then, The Record advertised a job posting on their Facebook page looking for an archivist with a good knowledge of the Eastern Townships, it’s like the job was literally created for me.
Despite having little experience and being fresh out of university, Sharon McCully decided to give me a chance and hired me on the spot; I guess she saw something in me that I couldn’t yet see in myself.
All I can say is that my journey brought me in more directions than one.
The Record holds a vast archive of photographs of the Eastern Townships and I was originally hired to scan and organize these records to create a digital archive.
Many of the photographs are unidentified and lack basic information such as dates, names, and places, but that challenge presented the perfect opportunity to dig up our local history.
After a few weeks of digitizing photographs, my editor grew tired of seeing me just scanning the pictures and wanted to do more with the project.
He asked me if I would be willing to write articles to include with the pictures I was scanning.
at first I was nervous, but since I was sitting in a room with two professional and experienced journalists and had their support, we gave it a shot.
In the beginning, they were small articles that mostly involved me reaching out to readers to help identify the photographs and then digging up the history on that subject, but things quickly snowballed to become much more.
As I continued to learn the ins and outs of writing for a newspaper, I was given the opportunity to write history articles that expanded beyond just our archives and led me to stumble some of the most fascinating pieces of local history.
Some of my favorites include the Megantic Outlaw, the British Home Children, Princess Salm-Salm, when Donald Duck came to Sherbrooke, and the Mystery Spot.
See full story in the Tuesday, April 28 edition of The Record.
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