Richard Thurmond

Thoughts on 21 years with the city magazine.

- Jodie Valade

NEXT MONTH, FOR THE FIRST time in 21 years, Richard Thurmond will not be on the masthead at Charlotte magazine. In September, he stepped down as publisher of the publication he joined in 1995 to accept a job with Charlotte Center City Partners as senior vice president of community and business development. Thurmond worked his way up from editorial assistant to editor to finally, in 2013, publisher, and saw the magazine grow along with the city. Here in his own words, the Tallahassee, Florida, native talks about his path to publisher, and his thoughts on the magazine’s role in Charlotte. (Interview edited for clarity and space.)

I WAS IN FIFTH GRADE when I decided I wanted to write. And, more specifically, write for Sports Illustrated. … I interned at The Charlotte Observer my senior year at Davidson (College), in the sports department. It was busy; it was fun. I got to write a lot, but I also slowly came to the realization that I didn’t want to work for a newspaper. I liked writing and I liked being creative in writing; the newspaper wasn’t really set up for that. And to be totally honest, the people I encountered in the newsroom did not seem very happy with their lives. Internships can show you want you want to do and show you want you don’t want to do. This was at the end of my senior year, so I’m like, “All right. I know what I don’t want to do.”

I LITERALLY STARTED CALLING people with English majors who went to Davidson and saying, “How do you make a living out of an English degree? How does this work?”

I ENDED UP IN THE OFFICE of somebody who was a corporate communications person at First Union, and she said, “You need to call my friend Ken Allen. He just got hired as editor of Charlotte magazine and they’re restarting the magazine.”