Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Some of you reading already know me, many I have yet to meet. For those who don’t know me, my name is Annie Bresee (pronounced Brah-Z). I was born and raised in Atlanta, went to college in Texas, and found myself working as a reporter for this paper on the Alabama-Georgia line in October. 

I am your new editor of Valley-Times News. I am incredibly grateful for that fact. We are a small but passionate staff. Besides myself and the publisher, we have five people putting our paper together. In total, we have one news reporter, one sports reporter, and a contributing writer. So, we stay busy running around Chambers County and West Point. 

We do this because we love it. We love writing, selling ads, and talking with people who come in to pay their subscriptions. 

I am still learning, as all of us are. Lord knows I have made mistakes, but that’s how we learn. I can not promise to be perfect, but I can promise you that I, and the extremely talented staff at VTN, will continue to work hard telling the stories of our community. 

Community news is vital. You can get international, national, or statewide news almost anywhere. What goes at VTN is the news of our little pocket of the Chattahoochee Valley. We take our responsibility to keep people informed very seriously. We also have a lot of fun doing it!

I was welcomed into this community immediately when I first became a reporter in October. Although some were curious how I came to be here from Atlanta. The short answer is I was a post-college grad unsure of my path in life. I loved journalism in school and saw a job posting on Indeed. I had no idea where Lanett was, or how to pronounce LaFayette.

The day I was offered the job of reporter by my former mentor and editor, Daniel Evans, was the same day my grandfather was put on hospice care. The decision to leave Atlanta while my favorite person was wrapping up his time on earth was the most difficult decision of my life. 

When I told him the news he was over the moon. He encouraged me in his old Atlanta voice, amazingly similar to Fog Horn Leg Horn, to “put something in there about Georgia Tech football” for him. 

Go Yellow Jackets!

Well, there you go Poppa.

The last conversation we had was about my job. He told me how proud he was and how I was “going places.” I wish everyone had as much faith in themselves as a grandparent does in them.

Having to drive away from Atlanta knowing he was not there anymore was hard. This community made it easier. It is my pleasure to be a part of it.