Farewell to The Capital

I am no longer the Internet Director at The Capital, but plan to continue this blog as long as there is interest. The excitement and curiosity of discovering a new home is still there. There are so many good things about Annapolis and many fine people I have met and heard stories from.

Speaking of The Capital I wish everyone there well and much success. I hope that the impending sale of the newspaper goes well and Annapolis and Anne Arundel county have the same (or better) service from the hometown paper and the hometown Web sites associated with it.

Newspapers across the country are in a difficult time of transition now - but the value of a local paper to a hometown community cannot be measured. There will be a way through this transition. I believe we are in an historic time in media and cultural development.

HometownAnnapolis is in good hands with a good team.

Meanwhile I can be contacted at alan@alaneason.com. Feel free to email me and to add comments to this post.

Alan Eason

Great Time with the Boys and Girls Club

In the last blog post I told you about an exciting "Money Matters" show the youth of Annapolis are putting on WNAV every Sunday morning at 8:30 AM.

I was privileged to be able to go last Thursday to the club and interview Reginald Broddie, the Chief Professional Officer of the Anne Arundel clubs; and then go and film the taping of the show at WNAV under the leadership of Lawrence Huggins.

It was a great experience. The economic advisers who were on the show (sponsored by Charles Schwab) were a great help and the questions the young people were asking amazed me. They showed a lot of depth and comprehension of some difficult subjects. I can honestly say that I learned a lot about the mortgage crisis and got a much better view of the financial crisis the country is in.

We will be putting together a video soon from the shooting I did last week plus a take on the class that will be shot this week. Mr. Broddie said that he would like to take the video to the National Convention coming up in San Francisco in a few weeks, so we will hurry production.

This blog will be moving, but look for a link to the video here - wherever it ends up on the Net.

Smart youth in the center of Annapolis

There is a pretty exciting Annapolis project waiting for me and I am anxious to start.

Friday I went by the Bates Center Annapolis Boys and Girls Club looking for a video project. Reginald Broddie, the Chief Professional Officer of the five Boys and Girls Clubs in Anne Arundel County, invited me into his office and we talked. It seems that he and Larry Huggins, a fine young communications professional with the clubs, had just been talking about video that same day. We decided to do a project together and put it on HometownAnnapolis.com.

Reginald talked about another project - one that we could cover - and it is exciting. Perhaps you have heard of it. It is a radio show called "Money Matters," which is produced by young people in the clubs and aired on WNAV at 8:30 on Sunday mornings. It teaches "critical thinking," Reginald says.

He made a believer out of me. I can't wait to watch them produce the show and film the process.

Long ago I became familiar with a favorite saying of Alex Haley. He used to quote it often in Tennessee, as he went around giving speeches and teaching at UT:

"Find the good and praise it."

Haley was a consummate journalist and to him this principle seemed the pinnacle of the craft of writing. In following that maxim he brought a lot of energy to people trying to do right.

Reginald and Larry have the same energy. It is exciting to join with them in this small project.

It will give me a good look at some of Annapolis' finest young people and I know it will take me a long way on my search to understand my new home.