Jon’s Favorites · 2016

Jon’s Favorites · 2016

2016 was a long year. If you thought 2015 was long, this year was even longer than last year, by just a smidge. And in that time, I wrote some stories.

Like in years past, I started 2016 at the beach. But in April, after almost five years on Delmarva, I moved to the city, accepting a job with the Baltimore Sun Media Group as its Catonsville and Arbutus reporter.

Getting to know the area has been interesting, and there has been plenty to write about.

So here are some favorites from this year that I’ve written from both here and there. I hope you enjoy them.

Of course, the story that had the most office chatter was the 83-year-old woman with the 78-year-old missing turtle.

Moving to a new place, I had a lot to learn about new traditions. Here in Baltimore, the snowball is supreme.

I had a couple school-related stories that I enjoyed reporting on. My editor came up with a clever idea for the traditional first day of school story, so it was refreshing to write about it from a different angle.

If you ever wanted to learn about school lunches, well I wrote about that.

Then there was the time I tried to write in rhyme.

Teachers at Pocomoke High School learned an important lesson on student hunger.

I even wrote a little bit about sports, but not the sports you would probably guess. In Maryland, I wrote about a rising mixed martial arts fighter. In Delaware, I wrote about seniors who play Wii Bowling.

This story I wrote about a 7-year-old drummer with leukemia made it to the top of theBaltimoreSun.com home page, probably because it features the best news video I’ve ever seen for my stories, done by Jen Rynda.

A memorable sight for me was the school parking lot filled with about 180 cars that were rescued after the historic Ellicott City flooding in July. Here’s my coverage of car owners reuniting with their vehicles, finding out if they would be salvageable.

And finally, like many reporters, I had to write election coverage in November. But when I got to the voting site I chose to cover, I was caught by surprise.

So I wrote a story about it.

I’ve got some talented friends in this business and I thought I’d share some of what they’ve done that I’ve enjoyed. 2017 goal: Do a better job tracking these, because I am sure I’m forgetting something great.

We’ll start with something that, if you follow me on Twitter, should be very obvious. Ulysses Munoz started doing videos starring my friend, Phil Davis. It has been elite.

Here’s the video they did on vegetarian burritos in Anne Arundel County.

In this video, they went to the Renaissance Festival in Crownsville.

I’m excited to see what 2017 brings, in this department.

Phil also wrote a nice story from the Army-Navy game, after covering it on Twitter in haiku.

Here are a few more favorites from friends.

» From Rachael Pacella: Loyola Blakefield graduate Van Brooks has turned life-altering tragedy into triumph and Catonsville, Arbutus record shops celebrate resurgence in sales of vinyl
» From Mitchell Northam: Ravens’ Cox is an important but unnoticed contributor.
» From Emily Chappell: A decade later, fallen soldier McMullen fondly recalled, McDaniel bookstore manager opens home to students for Thanksgiving and For many on Delmarva, ‘now’s the time’ to get a gun and 
» From Hannah Carroll: Children with autism ‘find peace’ surfing in OC and Flesh-eating bacteria death gives oyster eaters pause
» From Joe Lamberti: Basically anything he shoots with a camera. But here’s a photo gallery he recently shot at the Giants-Eagles Thursday Night Football game.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jon Bleiweis has been a reporter with the Baltimore Sun Media Group since April 2016, writing for the Catonsville Times, Arbutus Times and BaltimoreSun.com. To see his recent stories, click here. He can be reached at @JonBleiweis on Twitter. For more about Jon, visit JonBleiweis.com.