Sports Report by Mark Beasley

After 15 years of covering the local sports scene for the newspaper, the time has come to hang up the camera and put away the notepad.

The daily grind of the job, including working weekends, had become more and more of a chore. The event that hastened the decision came when it was determined my dear wife of 41 years would need open heart surgery on June 14. My summer will be spent helping her in her recovery, not watching the local baseball teams on warm summer evenings at our beautiful Marthaler Field.

I had no formal education in writing or layout, but that didn’t stop publisher Tim Douglass from taking a flyer on me 15 years ago this summer. 

I had been reading sports pages since I was a kid. My favorite thing to do on a family vacation was to get the newspaper from the town or city we were in and read about the local scene. The different look of the papers, with different layouts, fonts and mastheads, was very exotic to me. 

I had enough computer and page layout skills to get by, and so I had a part-time job that allowed me to do what I love, watching athletes do their thing.

I enjoyed a front row seat, literally, when Target Field was first opened, and wrote about it for the paper. I watched the sports complex at Minnewaska transformed from a run-of-the-mill, somewhat threadbare setup, to the beautiful place it is today. It’s a pleasure to watch our local athletes play in such nice environs.

We are very fortunate here to have successful athletic teams that are coached by some very solid citizens. I’ve always been proud to work for our paper. The Pope County Tribune is staffed by a great, hardworking staff. It’s been my honor to be a part of the team.