Debra McCown - Reporter / Bristol Herald Courier

Email: dmccown@bristolnews.com

Debra McCown began reporting for the Bristol Herald Courier in July 2006. She covers news in Abingdon, Washington County and Southwest Virginia, and has won multiple awards for her writing.

A 2005 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who did her summer internship at the Washington Times, she spent five months in Mongolia and a year working at USA Today before coming here.

After a year in the land of crime and traffic, she was faced with a dilemma: continue life in flat suburbia, beside neighbors who never said hello, or return to someplace normal.

Torn between the draw of fame in the big city and a quality of life like that in her native foothills just west of the Blue Ridge, she sent her resume to small cities with mountains. She chose Bristol because she believes convergence - the melding of print, television and online journalism - is the future - and because Washington County feels like home.

Whenever she's not out reporting the news (and, occasionally, even when she is out reporting the news), Debra is working at her second job: being Mommy.

Every day she watches with amazement as her little girl, Maggie, discovers the world around her. She counts each day a blessing with the opportunity to chase Maggie around the house and through the great outdoors.