By Zack Harold

In all the "When I grow up, I want to be..." essays I wrote in school, I don't think I ever filled in that blank with "a journalist."

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a cartoonist. I was more realistic in junior high. By then, I planned to become a professional country musician.

I set my heart on computer programming for much of high school and that plan went farther than the others. I applied, was accepted to and received scholarships for one of the state's best computer engineering programs.

Then, about a month before my high school graduation, I backed out to pursue journalism. And I have FlipSide editors Marina Hendricks and Amy Robinson to thank.

I joined FlipSide on a complete whim the summer before my senior year. I made good grades in English class, but I hardly considered myself a writer. I had no aspirations of writing for a living. Never even considered it an option. But I loved music.

My entrance essay was a short piece on the Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" album. I don't remember much about that story, but I would probably be very embarrassed to read it now. Still, FlipSide ran it.

I wrote several entertainment articles for FlipSide after that, including one where I interviewed a member of the band Switchfoot. Another time, I got press passes to a big car show in Bristol, Tenn., for my dad and me.

It was enough to turn me into an addict. I liked the privileges of being "the press." I liked talking to interesting people about interesting things, crafting a story from my notes and seeing the fruit of my labor on newsprint.

Soon, I could not see myself as a computer programmer. Marina further sealed my fate when she gave me a reporter's notebook. It made me feel like a real newspaperman, even if I wasn't yet.

Now I have all kinds of those slim manila notepads. I have six or seven on my desk, another half dozen in it, a couple in my backpack, a couple more in my car and one or two on my kitchen table. I think there might be one on top of my refrigerator.

In August 2009, the fine folks at the Charleston Daily Mail hired me as their education reporter. I talk to interesting people about interesting things every day. It buys my groceries.

I never broke any news as a FlipSider. I never brought any overlooked issue to light, never caused any controversies. But my silly little entertainment articles - written in the precocious language of a teenager who thought he could write, lovingly reworked by solid editors who knew better - were enough to get my feet wet.

Thanks Marina. Thanks Amy.

Zack Harold graduated from Sherman High School in 2005. He is the education reporter for the Charleston Daily Mail.