About the Voice

After I left The Virginian-Pilot last April, the idea of playing a lot of golf was appealing, but the pay wasn’t very good.

Plus, being a competitive person, I’ve never connected with the idea of going out and “just enjoying the great outdoors” on a golf course. Skulling a shot into a sound-side swamp is not enjoyable, although I’m patient and passionate enough to wait for the occasional solid hit.

I found myself playing more — I was fortunate enough to land a summer gig as a starter and ranger at the Nags Head Links — and was not getting much better. I could have called it practice, but practicing for what? There just were not enough opportunities to lose a couple dollars to my fellow golfers, most of whom are up in Virginia.

So I began to scour around for a paying job. And as many of you are well aware, that’s a lot more discouraging these days than missing a five-foot birdie putt. The stakes are infinitely higher than a $5 Nassau, too, if you have a daughter who is still in college and a wife who is working way too much to keep the family afloat. Or a contractor with young children and no houses to build.

For an old newspaper guy, the prospects were slim. Even if the economy didn’t take a dive, the future in newspapers was short. But I am a firm believer, as are most newspaper people, that the need for competent reporting, writing and commentary will not go away. It will just be delivered in different ways, and the industry has to figure out a new business model to make money and pay the bills.

There are some newspaper jobs out there, I found, but it would mean moving to the kinds of places I came to the Outer Banks to get away from. And retirement is close enough to seem real, if not imminent. Still, I knew that there was every possibility that I would have to move.

A Web site idea begins to germinate

Even before I said goodbye to The Pilot after 27 years, the idea of a local Web site was lurking somewhere in the the back of my cluttered mind. Now, with Web newspapering growing and what I sensed was a hankering for more news reporting on the Outer Banks, the timing seemed right.

My wife, Patty, tricked me into taking an online Web design course and I was hooked. About the same time, out of the blue, Russ Lay, a fellow Rotarian and corporate refugee who is a thoughtful and well-informed blogger, called and suggested developing a Web site.

I could find a million reasons to procrastinate, including looking at my incredibly amateur early attempts at Web design that clearly proved I was color-impaired. I kept at it and improved, but I would never get to the point that I could create a dynamic, interactive site.

With a little help from my friends (and relatives)

Still, my basic home page design began to actually look like a real Web site and things seemed encouraging. Russ and I met many times over coffee at the Morning View. Russ was the impetus and Irene Nolan, who pioneered local Web reporting on the Outer Banks with the Island Free Press, was a great source of advice and encouragement.

Rob and Libbie Morris

But it took my son, John, better known these days as Dabney, to pull it all together with WordPress software. He creates some eye-popping Web sites, many of them for bands and photographers out of Nashville. He’s a fine musician and composer, too, which is the work that he truly wants to devote all his time to. If you think of it, click on the small logo at the bottom of our home page to check out some of his work.

So now here’s The Outer Banks Voice.

We don’t know precisely where it will go, but we do know that we want it to be your Web site. A place where you can trust the information you find and depend on me, Russ and whoever else comes on board to do the work for you and find the news and commentary you want. We want to encourage you to participate in a free and civil debate. We want to hear your stories, too.

Please stay in touch with us. We will be responsive and we will make every effort to pursue the information and dig into the issues that are important to you.