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Petke joins The Winchester Sun staff

March 06, 2008|Meghan Cain

As a boy, Fred Petke delivered newspapers for extra cash. Now he writes newspaper stories that others deliver.Petke, the newest addition to the Winchester Sun, covers the police, sheriff and fire departments, EMS, the district and circuit courts, and "anything else that might be needed on any given day."

Petke moved from Corbin to join the staff in late February.

He was previously the senior staff writer at the Times-Tribune, which covered Knox, Laurel and Whitley counties. He covered everything from school board meetings to shootings and "everything in between," Petke said Friday.

"I had been working at my previous paper for around 13 years, and I was looking for a change of scenery," Petke said. "Things had gotten very comfortable and routine."

Petke is used to a life on the move. When he was a junior in high school, his family moved from Tennessee to North Carolina. It was also at this time that he discovered his knack for journalism.

He signed up to take journalism and be on his high school's newspaper staff "on a total lark. It looked like it would be fun," he said. He continued in journalism throughout high school. He attended Lees-McRae College in North Carolina and received a bachelor's degree in communication in 1994.

After taking about six months at home to volunteer with local missions programs at his church and to work in fast food and as a temporary employee in a factory, he landed his job in Corbin.

Now he is working on getting established here in Winchester and building contacts.

"I look forward to being here for a while," he said.

When Petke is not "recording the history of what happened" each day in Winchester, he is either watching a car race, listening to alt-country and bluegrass music or going to church.

"My passion has always been cars," Petke said. "That runs the gamut from old cars to racing, and all kinds of racing, not just NASCAR -although I do love it - to collecting Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars."

Petke said his experience at The Winchester Sun so far has been good.

"I have just started to get out and meet folks this week with in the local departments," he said. "It's all looking good."

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