Writer has local roots

Greetings Southeast Missouri, my name is Brent Shipman and I'm the new sports writer for the Standard Democrat.

It's exciting to be back in the area after spending the last four years in Springfield attending Missouri State University where I spent some time writing for its school paper, The Standard.

At The Standard, I had the opportunity to cover a slew of Division I athletics including basketball, soccer and my personal favorite, baseball.

While I enjoyed my time in the big city, I was glad to have the opportunity to move back to the Bootheel, where I spent the first 21 years of my life living in and around the Bloomfield area.

I got my first taste of writing sports in a stint as a part-time writer for Dexter's newspaper, The Daily Statesman, covering Stoddard County and surrounding high schools from the fall to 2004 to the spring of 2005.

I was able to cover many of the same teams at The Daily Statesman that I'll be covering at my new position here.

I look forward to an exiting spring sports season, and hope to see some great high school baseball, as well as other sports, in the coming months.

By the way, I was told the that the sports writer that I am replacing was a big Yankee fan, well that's not the case here. I'm Cardinal Red through and through.