Hello, Tidewater News readers, my name is Cain Madden, and I’ve recently received a great opportunity in getting to serve you as the newspaper’s managing editor.

I come here from Mississippi. In fact, I made the entire trip on Saturday from Oxford — all 13ish hours of it. I recently graduated with a degree in journalism from the University of Mississippi. Though school isn’t my only journalism experience, I’ve worked for other newspapers as well, including a newspaper owned by the same company in The Natchez Democrat.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Ole Miss — serving as the editor-in-chief for the student newspaper, getting to go to Belize to write the lead story for a magazine and then of course most of the classes and whatever I did in my small amount of free time I had.

I really hope to have as good of an experience here as I did there, and so far, everyone has been really nice and welcoming at The Tidewater News and out in the community. I’ve enjoyed meeting everyone that I’ve met so far in my reporting experience, and I expect that to continue.

The community itself is clean and beautiful as well. I’ve enjoyed my scenic bicycle rides out and about — Southampton County is a lot less hilly than Oxford was, and my leg muscles are much happier for it.

But most importantly, I’m looking forward to putting out a really good community newspaper. To do that, I’m really going to need your help.

People in the community are really the most important component of the community newspaper. And to really reflect that community of people, we need to know what is going on. We’ll try our best to get a handle on the community, but we can’t be everywhere or see everything — there are only a handful of us.

If there is anything that you think might be news, don’t hesitate to call me or email me. I’ll list my contact info at the bottom of this space.

If you see me out in the community and want to say hi or tell me about something, feel free to — I won’t bite; I’m from Mississippi, and if there is anything we do well, it is being obnoxiously polite.

Let me know if we are doing anything right or anything wrong, as well. As much as I’d like to be perfect, I know that’ll never happen. So if there are things we are covering too much or not enough, let me know — I’d love to hear it.

Newspapers are a passion of mine, and I want to make The Tidewater News the best that it can be. And I need you to make that vision a reality. Call me at 757-562-3187 and ask for Cain, or send me an email at the address listed below this column. Thanks for reading, and I hope to see you out in the community.

Cain Madden is the managing editor of The Tidewater News. His email is cain.madden@tidewaternews.com.