For most of my years, I knew, or realized, that I wouldn’t win a Pulitzer Prize during my media careers. I just wasn’t that kind of journalist. Yes, I’ve won a slew of a awards; I have a wall full of them. But deep down, I’m a “chop-shop” local journalist and always have been. And, I’ve always been OK with that if I was able to do what I enjoy.

But every once and a while, I get a gold nugget and do some really amazing work, if I do say so myself. I was one of the first journalists to extensively eye the opioid crisis in New Hampshire (a woman in the state medical examiner’s office said to me, upon requesting data, paraphrasing, ‘I was wondering when one of you would finally call me’). I have broken national stories; had my videos picked up by major networks; and even got a shoutout in a column by Arianna Huffington of HuffPost, after the first year that Patch and HuffPost began working together.

Those were fun times!

I haven’t had many big stories during the past few years so it was great that I happened upon this one: “After 3 Decades, New Evidence Could Solve Missing NH Teen Case”.

This is the story of Tippy McBride, a 15-year-old girl missing since 1984. It took me months to put together. But it’s riveting. Give it a read and let me know what you think. This really deserves to be a book. I think I’ll write one.

Update, April 14, 2018: Due to shares by my friends and others, more than 5,700 people read Tippy’s story. Google Editors also picked it up, too, which was cool, although it only received about 600 views from those links.