Bracken visits newsroom

By Kylie Barony

On Tuesday, May 15 Ron Bracken came to visit the Eagle Eye newsroom. Bracken has been writing for the Centre Daily Times for 41 years.

But as a student at Bald Eagle High School, Bracken had no interest in writing. Bracken got his first break in writing while he was writing for a small town newspaper in the back of a Centre Daily newsroom when he volunteered to cover a baseball league.

One day the sports editor came to him after a sports writer position opened and asked Bracken if he’d like to write a sports article for him, Bracken said no. A few days later Bracken regretted turning the offer down, so he went to the office and told the editor that he’d like to give a try, but the editor told Bracken that he had a guy coming in for the interview that day. But a few days later the editor informed Ron that the guy had failed to show up for the interview, he then proceeded to tell Bracken that he could write a story and he’d still look at it. Ron took the offer. And as the saying goes, the rest was history.

Ron gave the sports editor the article, and he loved it. Bracken was offered the position as a sports writer for the Centre Daily Times. While he was there, he worked his way up to sports editor.

Bracken recently had the honor of being inducted into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame for his sports writing.

“His feature story about the Vietnam war veteran really stood out to me because it was really sad but it was nice that he was remembered through writing.” Stephanie Hammond, Eagle Eye said

“I really enjoyed learning about Joe Paterno, and learning how he really was,” Christina Shuey, junior stated.

Having Ron in the newsroom was a great experience for the newspaper class, and I’m really happy that I got to share him with everyone. Not only is he a great news writer, he’s also an amazing grandfather.