Introductions

I'm excited to welcome a new voice to the mix here. Our friend Janine Anderson has graciously volunteered to help us in our search for the perfect story. You probably know her already, but here's some background.

Janine has spent 12 years as a journalist in southeast Wisconsin, covering suburban communities and the smaller cities south of Milwaukee.

She grew up in small-town Wisconsin and studied journalism at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she double-majored in dance and found the creative techniques from dance courses a perfect counterbalance for the technical focus of her journalism studies.

Janine has won state and national awards for her work, including a Casey Medal for Meritorious Journalism for a 2005 story about a grandparents raising their grandchildren. This story about a man's court battles over a murder he says he didn't commit came out of her participation in the inaugural Mike Levine Workshop in 2009.

She loves journalism that helps build community through a better understanding of the people within it and the stories they have to share.

Janine is a reporter for the Kenosha News, and previously worked for Patch and The Journal Times in Racine, Wis.

Here's some stuff she wrote she thinks you might like:

Call me

Charles Powell Jr., call Steve Frazier.
He wants you to pick up a phone and dial (262) 989-8585.
He wants to help you.

He wants you to pick up a phone and dial (262) 989-8585.

He wants to help you.

Hour of need

The request came out of nowhere.
Connie Cobb Madsen, coordinator of the Racine County Victim Witness Office, walked through the office Sept. 30 saying the same thing to everyone: You've got an extra room in your house. You can take her.

Connie Cobb Madsen, coordinator of the Racine County Victim Witness Office, walked through the office Sept. 30 saying the same thing to everyone: You've got an extra room in your house. You can take her.

New judge, new rules

A new judge comes with new rules, and everyone who practices law in the felony courts is learning which ones come with Circuit Court Judge Gene Gasiorkiewicz, who took the bench in August.
Ties and coats are a must. No shorts. No flip-flops. No cleavage or short skirts.
No unapproved cups.

Ties and coats are a must. No shorts. No flip-flops. No cleavage or short skirts.

No unapproved cups.

A shared grief

This is how you say goodbye to a friend, to a brother, to a cousin, to a boy you never even met.
You come outside, to the place where a bullet pierced his chest; to the place where he collapsed, at the end of a glass-strewn walkway; to the place where he died, by a rust-streaked pole with a crimped top.

You come outside, to the place where a bullet pierced his chest; to the place where he collapsed, at the end of a glass-strewn walkway; to the place where he died, by a rust-streaked pole with a crimped top.

Please help me welcome Janine.