ScottHollifieldWrites.com

Scott Hollifield wrote his first column as a 15-year-old high school intern for his local newspaper, inspired by the likes of Lewis Grizzard, Dave Berry and Erma Bombeck.

By most accounts, it wasn’t a very good column, falling far short of the works of his heroes. Nonetheless, he refused to stop stringing words together for the amusement of others.

Critics at the time said he progressed from “not very good” to “fair,” fell back to “not very good” and then soared to “pretty funny, I guess” all in the span of four weeks. He soldiered on. Higher education interruped this rollercoaster ride of column writing.

Several years later, Hollifield returned to his hometown with a degree in English and a burning desire to cover the cops and courts beat. Coincidentally, that was the only job open at the paper at that time. That is why it became a burning desire.

Over the years, Hollifiled switched to goverment reporting, became associate editor and finally editor of his hometown newspaper, a role he held for two decades.

During that time, there was one constant: A weekly column carrying on the tradition of Lewis Grizzard, Dave Berry and Erma Bombeck. Thankfully it got better, earning a slew of regional and state press awards and appearing in other newspapers across North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina , Virginia and beyond, amusing or confusing hundreds of thousands of readers.

Hollifield, though, could not escape the The Great 21st Century Newspaper Massacre, eventually losing his decades-long small-town editor gig as the big media companies took a scorched-earth approach.

Still, he soldiers on, looking at life with a skewed perspective, a crooked grin and a burning desire to string words together for the amusement of others.