Zach Hedrick, SMT Writer
Some struggle and search for years to find their calling in life while others have a date with destiny from birth for a specific direction in their journey. Joe is one of those lucky few who seems to have known his passion from the toddler stage on into his college years.
Meeting him in his early years, Joe was a little different from others toddlers as exhibited by his very early reading abilities and his uncanny talents for reciting movie credits to anyone who would listen.
"As long as I can remember I had a passion for the sports and the entertainment industries from a journalistic perspective," noted Northern.
At home as a young child he only had three TV channels, and can remember at 8 years old being glued to the MLB game of the week and honing his broadcasting skills.Joe's first chance to display his skills was afforded by Brad Aycock. Brad had started an annual BA Sports All-Star Extravaganza in March of 2003 to honor area athletes. Joe was 10 years old at this time, and was given an opportunity to MC portions of the event with duties such as announcing lineups and commercial sponsors.
"Joe is a great example of following your dreams or your calling. He was already skilled and developing a following at the age of 9 when he had a segment on our weekly radio show "Diving In with BA Sports," commented Brad Aycock, former businessowner.
"His segment was called "Joe's High Fives." added Aycock. "People from across the area would tune in to hear this kid share his vast knowledge about the top sports stories.""I knew then that he had "it." confirmed Brad. "He's destined for greatness in the world of media."
Joe's second big break came in August 2003 by happen-chance at a NBA game in Memphis involving the Memphis Grizzlies.
"We had court side seats and I was pretending to announce the game from my seat," remembered Joe.
Joe was spotted by the Grizzlies Media Relations Director, Mr. Eric Hasseltine. Mr. Hasseltine gave Joe his business card and asked him to later contact him. Joe did just this, and received an invitation back to Memphis to go on air for the first time on a local sports talk radio show where he had an opportunity to interact with callers and "talk sports." "That January day in 2004 is when I knew that I was hooked on broadcasting," recalled Northern.
Throughout Middle School and High School at Bloomfield, Joe had several more chances to live out his dream. He was given his first DJ gig for a benefit dance for Hurricane Katrina. That later led to being the DJ at many dances in 7th and 8th grade.
In high school, Joe became heavily involved in the Speech and Debate Club. This gave Joe an opportunity to further develop his speaking talents with an emphasis on humorous interpretation, radio speaking, and poetry reading. He made the district finals all 4 years and was a state qualifier his last three years of high school.
Northern states," Speech and debate helped me deal with critiques of my speaking style both by others and myself. Speech and debate helped tremendously to build my confidence." Joe had other opportunities in high school to polish his broadcasting performance with various live webcasts through a joint venture between the local newspaper and Bloomfield High School. He provided coverage of both high school volleyball and basketball through this endeavor.
Joe began branching out of the local scene in August of 2010 when he accepted an internship at WKIB FM 96.5 in Cape Girardeau. Initially, he earned valuable experience behind the scene, but soon branched out to include a pre-recorded Sunday show he produced on his own.
He left the internship in January 2011, and one week later received a phone call from the program director to offer him a night-time host position from 7-11.
"I was worried about the stress load of handling high school classwork in addition to traveling nightly to Cape to work," remembered Northern. "However after consulting with his parents and praying it over, I accepted my first regular paid job in the media industry."His night-time show had great success, and the station allowed Joe to implement his own creativity into the production. "JoJo's at Night", and "JoJo's Juice" were two of the shows he was able to create and produce.
Joe graduated from Bloomfield High in May of 2011 and began SEMO-Sikeston in the fall as he continued to work with the Cape radio station. However, he soon ventured in his own business in the fall as he created Northern Sound Service and began providing DJ services to private parties, weddings, and school dances.
Joe said, "The money was much better in the private business and the work was less demanding, so I quit the radio station in December of 2011."
Joe's next step in his dream came true in the fall of 2012 when he entered the pre-journalism program at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Opportunities abound at Mizzou to be involved in the journalism industry, and Joe immediately became involved in the student run TV and radio stations - MUTV and KCOU. His television job is primarily news and entertainment based where he reports, creates his own stories, and hosts a panel show for the listening audience. The radio responsibilities are more sports related as he was able to produce the Syracuse-Mizzou radio broadcast, along with hosting the pre-game, halftime, and post-game shows.
Joe added that with this job comes the opportunity to attend post-game news conferences and interview players and coaches. Now that basketball season has begun, Joe has been given the challenge of taping a broadcast to the Mizzou games and using it in later news shows.When not on the air, producing or promoting a show for MU-TV, Joe is also a dedicated fan of the Missouri Tigers as well. The game day photos with friends and other students allow you to immediately understand just how deep the sports vein runs in his life.
He has recently had the honor of being promoted to an Executive position at MU-TV as of mid-November, and is now in charge of producing content for the entertainment division of the station. Joe feels that all of this experience he is gaining will help him to gain acceptance into the prestigious Missouri School of Journalism in the Spring of 2014.
Joe Northern certainly seems on his way to achieving his dreams he has envisioned since a very young age. When asked about his dream job he was hesitant, but stated that calling basketball games at a major college or professional level would certainly be one his dreams. As for now, he is intent on learning as much as he can about all aspect of the media industry as possible. He is a very focused, driven young man who continues to work very hard to someday live out his dreams.
Photos provided by Greg Mathis.
Jessica Snider, SMT Writer
Doug Cox has been smoking meat for many different events throughout the community for quite sometime. It all started while watching his dad, Doug Cox Sr., doing the same thing. “My biggest inspiration for this was my dad. I followed him around and watched him cook,” remembered Cox, “He didn’t do it for a living. It was just backyard cooking.”
Also many of his earlier jobs keeping Doug busy were raising money for little league traveling baseball teams. Cox’s meat-smoking helped pay expenses for the team to travel to tournaments and also raised enough for new uniforms.
Cox has also started traveling around to various cooking competitions. He travels around to different locations for the competitions and one of those places being Talladega. “We’ve won some of the competitions. Sometimes we win money, but we also have some trophies.” In the competitions there are usually five categories to be entered in. Most people usually cook brisket, chicken, and or ribs.
Although Doug Cox cooks for a lot of people, he has really started to turn more towards charities. “That’s the main thing I like to do now,” says Cox. Last week, Cox was in charge of cooking the meat for the Drew Albritton fundraiser. “We shoot for things that will in someway help people.”
This has become something that Doug Cox more or less donates his time for. He has six large cookers that he uses and they are all used with charcoal and hickory.
Doug Cox has some help in doing all this. Two other guys that are a big part of this are: Dallas Buchanan and James Kaufman.
Jennifer Miller is shown picking up a smoked turkey from Doug Cox that she will be using for her family Thanksgiving. Ms. Miller is also in charge of the Senior Citizen Turkey Dinner held last night, which Doug cooked for.
He has been smoking the meat for the Senior Citizen Turkey Dinner sponsored by Dexter High School Student Council for over fifteen years now. Last night at the dinner there were over three hundred people in attendance.
Many people have been in and out of Doug Cox’s driveway this week and it will continue tomorrow as people pick up their orders for Thanksgiving.
Not only just during holidays, though. Doug cooks for people all year long. Doug often sponsors events throughout the year such as fishing tournaments, Relay for Life, and also 18 Fore Life.
Doug Cox is an example of something that often goes unnoticed. Cox donates a lot of his free time in order to help people in the community. Remember if you ever need some meat smoked to give Doug a call!
Jessica Snider, SMT Writer
Thanksgiving is a special time of year when we gather around with family and maybe even close friends and enjoy a great meal or two. Thanksgiving is much more than stuffing our faces with mom’s turkey or grandma’s pecan pie. Thanksgiving is a time of year we should be especially thankful for all we have.
In the world we live in, it is often easy to forget all we have been blessed with. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t be thankful all year round, however. Thanksgiving often brings out the gratefulness in many people.
You can see it in the Facebook posts especially. If you’re a social media user, you know that each day in November a lot of people decide to choose one thing they are thankful for. Some of the things I saw on my Facebook newsfeed today were: family, friends, and, yes, someone was honest enough to admit they’re thankful to be able to attend school.
We sometimes don’t realize how blessed we are until something is taken from us. Take being healthy for example. Many people don’t walk around through the day thanking the Lord that they feel well that day unless they know what it is like to be unhealthy or sick.
A lot of us travel to work, work all day, come home to our families, and maybe even complain that we have to do it all again the next day without even once stopping to be thankful that we’re able to do all of that. Many people who can’t even leave their homes would love to be able to go to work every day.
This isn’t to say everyone isn’t thankful, though. I’m sure there are people who wake up every morning and automatically thank God for waking them up that day. Society has started making it harder for people to be thankful for anything, and those that stand up strong and do it anyways are truly people to look up to.
So as you and your family gather around the table this Thanksgiving, the men run off to watch football, and the women gear up for Black Friday shopping, make sure you take time out in your day to be thankful for everything you’ve been blessed with. Be thankful for even the smallest things that you never take time out to appreciate. You never know when what you have can be taken from you.
We’re all SO BLESSED!
May everyone have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving this year!
Jessica Snider, SMT Writer
A few weeks ago Mark Nea was announced as the 2012 PigSkin Pick’Em Challenge Winner.
It was a close competition, but Mark Nea pulled ahead in the end with a total of 170 points.
In honor of winning the challenge, there is more than just bragging rights involved. The 2012 winner was promised an iPad Mini and Mark Nea was delivered his prize today.
We would like to give a special thanks to the sponsors for making the PigSkin Pick’Em Challenge possible. The 2012 sponsors are as followed: A Cut Above Lawn Care, Allen Christian Inc., Audibel Chris Warren, Bank of Advance, County Wide Insurance Agency, Dexter Queen Restaurant, D&S Drug Store, First Commercial Bank, First Midwest Bank, Hair Lingo, Holden Pallet Company, Kris Willis RV, Metro Gallery, Montgomery Bank, Real Living Young Realty, Rob Mayer for Circuit Judge, Terry Swinger.
In the photo, Mark Nea is shown holding his new iPad Mini he received today for winning the challenge.
Jessica Snider, SMT Writer
From an early age, Maggie Thorn has loved singing. Not only did she realize her love for singing, but she also caught the performing bug at an early age.
Thorn has been singing since she was two years old and could always be caught performing at family functions. Not only did she just perform for family, however, she was also known to sing in church and school plays quite frequently.
After being very active in choir and special concerts, Thorn started to play the guitar more seriously when she was in eighth grade. Maggie Thorn has always been more directed towards country music. “I’ve always loved old country. Such as Patsy Montana, Patsy Cline, and Tammy Wynette,” Thorn commented. While on the subject of country music, Thorn notes that she taught herself how to yodel from watching various YouTube videos.
One of the biggest turning points thus far throughout Thorn’s singing experience has been winning the Midsouth Fair. For the victory, she sang Cowboy’s Sweetheart and yodeled.
Amidst many things going in the right direction for Thorn, she got a huge opportunity with winning a $3,000+ trip to Hollywood to audition in front of CBS Executives and to tape the Craig Ferguson Show.
After that, Thorn began performing at local wineries, restaurants, and charity events. “It’s great to have a job that I love,” said Thorn.
Thorn once applied to NOISE, a vocal music camp put on by MUZAK for sixteen talented teenage musicians across the US, and got accepted. Thorn also won the National Beta Talent Competition where she sang lead in a trio of girls this past summer. Winning National Beta Talent was not only a huge accomplishment for Maggie, but for Bloomfield School as well.
Thorn applied to Belmont University in Nashville and got accepted. This is where she attends currently and is majoring in Commercial Music Voice. “I’m having the time of my life surrounded by others whose passion is music. Despite the studies being difficult, the rewards of friendship and amazing opportunities to perform far outweigh any hardships,” noted Thorn on her time at Belmont thus far.
Maggie Thorn will soon be getting to experience something she has wanted to be a part for a while as she performs in Christmas at Belmont. “I’ve watched the past few years and really wanted to be apart of it. It will be televised and aired nationally Sunday, December 21st at 9:00 P.M. and locally NPT on Christmas Eve at 9:00 P.M. I’m so excited,” commented Thorn on this wonderful opportunity
Thorn’s goal is to continue to improve her musical skills and eventually make her career in the music business, wherever that may lead her.
Maggie Thorn does not take the support of the people around her lightly. She says they are the reason she is able to continue following her musical dream. “One of my dreams is to be able to thank them from the stage of the Grand Ole’ Opry,” said a very hopeful Maggie.
Thorn currently has a new original video on YouTube called “Gravel Road.” She asks that everyone check it out at: http://youtu.be/mabNCn8DIIgMaggie also has a Facebook page that you can like. Just search “Maggie Thorn’s Music Page.”
Maggie Thorn has a busy and bright future ahead as she continues at Belmont University, and also she hopes to have a CD out after the first of the year.
Many people around the local area are aware of Maggie Thorn’s amazing talent. With the continuation of your support and love for her, one day the whole world could have the chance to hear Maggie’s voice. We wish Maggie the best of luck in all she hopes to accomplish!
