Greetings Crofton

Sometimes you need to leave to truly appreciate what you left.

Greetings, Crofton! I’m Nicki Mayo, a Maryland native and the new Crofton Patch editor.

Shortly after I graduated college, the snakehead fish crawled out of a Crofton pond. Nearly a decade later, I’m back home and a peeping Tom was caught in our community. Friends, there are so many positive people, events and issues that should make headlines before freaky fish and inappropriate intruders.

Crofton Patch is your window into our community. 

I believe Maryland communities are the best in the nation. We have family, spirit, economic development and diversity. Take it from a woman who’s moved around a lot, we have it made here in the Old Line state.

Durning the past decade, my journalism career has taken me from Baltimore to Prince George’s County, Florida, Tennessee, western New York and now I am back home in Maryland.

I grew up on Baltimore’s west side in Park Heights attending parochial schools. I attribute John Paul Regional Catholic School and Seton Keough High School with grooming me to understand the importance of family and community. Syracuse University gave me a chance to cultivate my journalism skills while learning about life beyond the mid-Atlantic.

I am humble about my experiences so I’d rather not bore you with my professional resume. I taught high school English in Prince George’s County and worked for local, national and 24-hour news groups covering general assignment and political stories.

No station call letters can validate my work more than the people who are the center of my stories. These Ordinary People’s Extraordinary Stories are the backbone of my news blog and journalism career. With every career jump and new adventure, I vowed to make people the heart of each story I file. Now, I finally get to bring this talent back to my home state.

Any Maryland born, raised and educated person can testify to learning the state’s extensive history. We all memorized the cities, counties and government structure. Some of us just fell a little too much in love with social studies. That would be me. Journalism gives me an avenue to chronicle the human experience.

We make history every day. The question is, who will tell our stories?

Crofton, I invite you to let me tell our stories. We live, laugh and love. Annapolis policies impact our lives. School events make us laugh. Family milestones make us love.

As you get to know me you’ll notice I often say “Happy Monday, Tuesday …” and I try to remind people that the present is a gift. Let’s share this gift together.

Please feel free to contact me with your story ideas, issues and comments.

My e-mail is nicki.mayo@patch.com and I invite you to join in the conversation on Facebook by "liking" Crofton Patch. You can also follow my tweets, @CroftonPatch.