Thoughts on 21 years with the city magazine.
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.”
Denne historien er fra November 2016-utgaven av Charlotte Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra November 2016-utgaven av Charlotte Magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
‘This Is How We're Going to Make Your Child Better'
Pediatric neurosurgery is technically and emotionally complex—and traditionally dominated by men. As Novant’s first female pediatric neurosurgeon, Dr. Erin Kiehna Richardson has had to learn the intricacies of a demanding field and battle sexism along the way
The Dumbledore of CMC
A surgery resident wrote a series of children’s books and created a special kind of medical magic
LGBTQ HB2+5
Five years after the furor of House Bill 2, the LGBTQ community—in Charlotte, in North Carolina, and across much of the nation—fights attacks on new fronts
Oh, Snap!
New ‘selfie museum’ in Concord celebrates the 1990s
ALLISON LATOS
The WSOC anchor on her hard trek from one episode of loss and grief to another—and the meaning of resilience
GOOD HEALTH
For years, Charlotte has been one of the largest American cities that lacked a four-year medical school. The health care professionals who finally made it happen overcame a series of setbacks, false starts, and failures, and they plan to use their clean slate to create a new kind of community asset
Summer Partee
From woodwork to retail, the kindergarten teacher-turned-designer has learned how to do it herself
Uptown or Downtown?
Archives illuminate how long we’ve argued over the perennial question
NOW OPEN NOVEL ITALIAN
Paul Verica brings a simpler version of the city’s hottest food trend to NoDa
TOP DOCTORS 2021
The annual list you can't without
