What a year 2018 has been. From football and Mud Nationals to Rose Festival and rodeos, I’ve covered all things East Texas as a multimedia journalist at the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

Without a doubt, the biggest story I worked on that was published this year was “Lives in Limbo: DACA in East Texas.” I interviewed and photographed nine Dreamers and one undocumented immigrant to learn about their experiences and to give East Texans a perspective on immigration from their neighbors, friends and coworkers. As a community journalist, I believe it’s important to localize national stories so that the people who live in your town have a better understanding of those issues and have the opportunity to see personal perspectives as well as how those issues affect their community.

I love getting to cross paths with people I might otherwise not have had I not been working on a story. I admire people like Larry Terkleson, a man who became a double amputee after surgery complications but says he still lives as full of a life as anyone else and keeps busy welding custom barbecue pits for people and building fences and hog pens.

Or people like Jarod Durham, a 17-year-old who completed his turkey hunting Grand Slam a little over two years after surviving and recovering from a brain aneurysm.

It wouldn’t be East Texas without a lot of sporting events, especially under the Friday Night Lights. This year I covered football, basketball, track and field, baseball, softball and rodeos, to name a few sports. The energy sports bring is always exhilarating, and it’s a fun challenge to capture peak action and emotion in new ways at the games.

And of course, who could forget the Texas Rose Festival. It was only my second year to cover this event, but I always love seeing the custom dresses the designers create; having a musical background, I appreciated this year’s theme of “Rock the Rose,” honoring artists, bands and genres that have shaped music over the years.

As the year wraps up, it’s a great time to look back on my work and reflect. I’m thankful that each and every day, my job brings me new experiences and gives me the opportunity to meet so many East Texans and learn about their lives. To photograph all kinds of moments, the highs and lows of life, to be the first to document history, it’s all an honor to shoot. I hope you’ll join me along for the ride in 2019 as I continue to share more moments from the Piney Woods.