These stories stand out above the countless ones I have written.
Southwest: The Magazine (Sept. 2015)
I did some side projects with your favorite in-flight magazine about Lake Tahoe/Reno, Nevada and Navajo Nation:
Global Connections Inc. (Sept. 2013-Present)
I run most of the social media sites for a dozen of our company’s different services, along with managing contributions from colleagues. My main responsibilities involve running the accounts of our most prominent service, Global Discovery Vacations:
The Shawnee Dispatch (Feb. 2012-Sept. 2013)
- I was supposed to write a vanilla summer update, but some coaches are too good for idle chit-chat.
- Former NFL lineman Ryan Lilja helped out a high school football camp in exchange for yard-work.
- Two teams, two sets of sibling trios. I’ve done several twin features, so this was the natural progression.
- It was a tough day at the track for this KU football hopeful.
- Local quarterback learns lessons on mortality and redefines a football program.
- A football gamer about a team who just won its league title in impressive fashion.
- A fluffy offseason assignment turned into a legitimate story about the history of a soccer program. There are some changes I would make to the writing, but I got the most I could out of this story. I love the ending.
- This football season preview almost wrote itself. So many good quotes and information.
- A graduate from a local high school is now one of the top collegiate discus throwers in the nation.
- College punter tries to become drafted by an NFL team.
Music Roundtable
I don’t know how I will be able to top the passion, purpose and prose of this 2016 Music Review. Of all the writing I have ever done, I am most proud of it.
If you want to see me unshackled in an non-professional setting, peruse this blog at your discretion.
Lawrence-Journal World (2011-Feb. 2012)
- The underdog of the in-state soccer rivalry pulled the upset. A tale of joy, disappointment and respect.
- A team without its top three quarterbacks starts a running back… and wins.
- This football gamer follows the one listed below. Maybe my best work at LJW.
- High school team wins big, but loses a key player to a gruesome injury. This was one of the more tragic events I have covered.
- I love cross country, as I used to run and coach it myself. This article has a couple of my favorite interviews and is a change of pace from the big-time sports.
The University Daily Kansan (2009-2011)
To be young and naive. As with all of our early works, I wrote some good pieces and some I wish would never see the light of day. Since the Kansan changed its website, I’ve had to find new links from stories and I can’t find all of them. I’m working on it. These are my favorite five:
Here are links to some other stories for your viewing pleasure:
Sports Stories
(Note: Due to an update to the Kansan website, some of the links may not work)
- My last ever story for the Kansan reflected on my two years at KU. It might be one of my best works to date.
- Column on Josh Selby’s debut and the greatest word in the English language. Online exclusive.
- When Josh Selby first landed in Lawrence, doctors almost immediately discovered a broken finger.
- One of the toughest challenges in my career was covering Lew Perkins and the Kansas Athletics ticket scandal. I also had to upload the PDFs of the reports online.
- A recap of Kansas basketball beating Missouri, I thought the beginning was pretty funny.
- This is one of my favorite KU basketball recaps. The player banter was hysterical.
- I asked Xavier Henry if he deferred to Sherron Collins and Cole Aldrich instead of taking the game over himself. It was a gutsy question, but I felt it let to a gritty story, not some lousy filler. Those kinds of questions equal good stories.
- This game started at 9:30 p.m. After getting player quotes, I had about 15 minutes until deadline. This was my welcome-to-the-big-league moment and I’m proud of the result.
News Stories
- Debuting KU’s social networking club.
- This is just a fun story about a local haunted house tour guide. Michael Jackson inspired the lead.
- It may be a little story on city construction, but it resonated with the student body.
- I thought this was a “blah” story, but people liked it because of the married couple sub-plot. Looking back, that part should have been the lead.
The Campus Ledger (2008-2009)
This link is more for my own reference, but this is what I wrote at Johnson County Community College when I was just starting out as a writer: http://campusledger.jccc.edu/search/node/corey+thibodeaux
- This is a hard-to-find exclusive; one of my first sports story about an injury to the best player on Johnson County Community College’s basketball team.
- My most memorable piece from JCCC about brothers on the tennis team.
- Exploring e-books vs. textbooks. It’s an old story, but I like the opposing viewpoints.
The Roundtable 