Dear readers,
Today begins another high school football season, our ninth at HobbsDailyReport.com and the 50th — and final — for me.
Having turned 67 on Aug. 1, it is time to announce my intention to retire.
I will work this football season, then review where I am. If my health is OK at that point, I intend to continue through to end of the school year, which would also be No. 50.
HELP OUR WEBSITE REMAIN HEALTHY
Chris Iright) and Myra (left0 hope you enjoy HobbsDailyReport.com.
We are actively seeking additional advertisers… as we continue to want our website to serve readers for FREE.
The only way we can do that is through ads buys… and we can provide ads to meet small and large budgets.
We sell ads for fall sports, winter sports or spring sports and would love to have buyers support our effort for a full school year.
For more info, contact Chris at chobbs001@att.net.
We can do ads for as little as $25 a month… and your ad will be seen by at least 200,000 or more prep fans per school year.
Our coverage is the most timely you will find and our ability to put what happened in proper context is top notch, as Chris is the longest active sportswriter (preps, college or pros) working in North Carolina.
I began covering high school football in 1976 and did that until being a “reduction in force” (another term for layoff) in 2017.
I was a sports correspondent at The Hickory Daily Record — starting in the summer of 1976, shortly after graduating from Bandys High (where I worked six years within the athletic department, as the school had grades 7-12 there).
I first worked as a sports correspondent for The Hickory Daily Record while also working in a local factory.
I entered full-time journalism at age 19 as sports editor at The Lenoir News-Topic.
I returned to The Hickory Daily Record as a sports writer in 1979, working with the late Dan Richards, and remained there until leaving in 1982 to work as The Gastonia Gazette’s assistant sports editor under the late David Poole.
I left Gastonia after six months to accept a sportswriter’s role — specializing by covering more than 100 schools in Piedmont N.C. for The Charlotte Observer). While there, I covered 15 conferences and also was responsible for coverage of 54 high schools in South Carolina.
I left Charlotte to become sports editor of The Salisbury Post in 1997 and left Salisbury after three months when I was offered the sport’s editor’s job at The Hickory Daily Record.
I then spent 1997 through early 2017 — later adding assistant editor to my job as sports editor — and in my final three months at my hometown newspaper was named editor of the paper while the editor was on leave.
The day the editor returned, I was informed I was a “reduction in force” in a move I still consider a betrayal.
Encouraged to continue by good friends, etc., I launched this website in April 2017 and it debuted with more than 8,000 pages views that April (it is current at 2.5-plus since launching).
As I work toward ending a 50-year career, I want to thank two friends who are still with me in making the website free to readers — Dwayne Wilson (insurance) and Michael Burke (Burke Mortuary) and also my webpage guy, Chad Austin.
Chad was our IT guy at the Hickory Daily Record who, for years, would stop by my desk to tell me I was only making the newspaper rich and that I needed to have my own website.
“About time,” Chad ribbed me the day I asked him to build HobbsDailyReport.com.
Retiring is not an easy decision — can I really step away? – but it is time, as I want to spend more and more time with my wife/best friend/everything Myra.
Until 15 years ago, I did not know anything but covering sports. My life changed when I met Myra, who is from the Philippines, and I want to focus on her until the Lord says my time is done.
Thank you for reading this and please continue to visit the website.
If you see me at a game and want to chat, please come visit me in the football press box (I will be there, as I don’t walk well anymore). I welcome all comments, complaints as I have done this for so long because I share a compassion for high school sports with so many.
Warmest regards,
Chris Hobbs
Editor/content coordinator
HobbsDailyReport.com