Column: When Country Comes to Town
By Antionette Kerr
“Country Come to Town” is a phrase shared from a friend.
As a journalist, I’ve spent a career chasing stories — city stories, movement stories, stories that take you to places where the sidewalks never crack and the coffee comes with complicated instructions. But there’s something special about writing from a place where the chickens still beat your alarm clock.
When I first came back to Davidson County, I thought I’d left my “country roots” behind. I’d lived in bigger cities, traveled for work, met colleagues who said things like “circle back” and “let’s ideate.” But here, the news breaks in church foyers, barber chairs, and the checkout line at Food Lion. Here, “country” isn’t an insult — it’s an identity.
You learn fast that when country comes to town, it doesn’t tiptoe in. It rolls up in a Jeep that knows every pothole by name, parks crooked, and waves at people it doesn’t know — because it just might know your people.
Covering local news here means understanding that a “press release” might come as a Facebook post written in all caps, and that sources will call you “sweetie” before they call you back. It means balancing the old with the new — the tradition of front-porch storytelling and the pace of modern journalism.
I’ve watched as our towns grow shinier, more “developed,” while still clutching the pearls of a place that raised its young on church suppers and homecomings. There’s pride in that. Even when the big-city folks come through trying to explain “engagement strategy,” I just smile and think, “Honey, we’ve been engaging since the cookout.”
Being a journalist here is like living in the overlap — where elders meeting at Hardees is the unofficial council, and young entrepreneurs are building empires out of food trucks and faith.
So yes, when country comes to town, there’s humor in it — but also grace. It reminds me that storytelling doesn’t just happen on deadlines; it happens at the intersection of memory and change. It happens in the laughter between “you ain’t gon’ believe this” and “write that down.”
And that’s the beauty of Davidson Local — We don’t just cover the stories here.
We live them.
