Newest Sentinel reporter moved here from Maine

Sam Pausman, the Sentinel's newest reporter, switched coastlines to start work in Wrangell on July 15.

He moved from Maine to Alaska.

"I wanted to see something totally new, nothing close to anywhere I had ever been before," Pausman explained. The closest he had ever been to Alaska was Chicago.

A May graduate from Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Maine, he majored in history, with a focus on journalism. He worked on the college newspaper, including a stint as editor-in-chief his senior year, managing a staff of more than 60 student journalists.

He also worked as a sports journalism intern at the Portland Press Herald, the largest daily newspaper in Maine.

"The rain itself is not a turnoff," he said as it rained every day during his first week in Wrangell. "Maine prepared me well," he said of living in a coastal climate.

Pausman said he was looking for a small-town community journalism job when he heard about the opening in Southeast Alaska. "Wrangell checked a lot of the boxes I was looking for. ... As a reporter here, you are seeing a real, tangible community."

He wanted to live and report in a community where he could meet the people and learn about what is important in their lives.

As he has been talking with people during his first week in Wrangell, "so many people said, 'I planned on moving here and staying one or two years,' but fell in love with the place and stayed."

Before he took off from the airport in Portland, Maine, for the 32-hour journey to Newark, New Jersey, then Anchorage and down to Wrangell, he said his father wrote out a list of things to remember in his new job and new adventure. "The last one was, 'Have fun.'"

His last meal in Maine was a lobster roll, though he said he is looking forward to enjoying Alaska's seafood bounty of salmon, halibut, crab, shrimp and oysters.

Pausman will cover City Hall, the borough government, schools, community activities and a lot more for the Sentinel.

Becca Clark, who had covered City Hall for the Sentinel, left Wrangell on July 17, moving to Montana, where she will help run adventure bike tours.