I began my newspaper career in 1982 in Ohio when I was hired by my hometown newspaper, The Chillicothe Gazette. I had graduated high school two weeks earlier when the Chillicothe Gazette’s sports editor called to ask if I wanted a job. He had been impressed with my stories for my high school newspaper. I had written a lot of stories on the girls’ sports programs being shortchanged by the school administration. Those stories got me called to the principal’s office several times, but they also helped me land that first job. I knew I wanted to be a journalist since I was 8. In 1972, I watched a TV movie called “The Night Stalker,” which pitted a crime reporter against a vampire. The follow-up TV series, “Kolchak: The Night Stalker,” as well as the Watergate hearings, cemented that desire. Since 1982, I’ve worked as a reporter covering sports, features, crime, business and politics. I’ve rallied a community around a World War I veteran’s widow who was down to her last three cans of food in her cupboard, covered the Beltway sniper attacks, faced threats from drug dealers, spent countless hours at government meetings and even have written about ghosts. But I still have not encountered a vampire.