Rae Drady joined The Sealy News as its newest government and community reporter April 6. She attended San Antonio College and worked in community newspapers in the same area.

Although she graduated from Rockville High School in Maryland, Drady moved around throughout her childhood as an Army brat. However, it was that school where her journalism roots were planted.

“We had an award-winning newspaper. Kevin Keegan was our newspaper instructor,” Drady said. “And we had a literary and artistic publication called Echoes Magazine, which was also award-winning. By my senior year, I was the co-editor-in-chief of Echoes Magazine (for my teacher Nancy Tauban).”

From there, she was given her first job in professional journalism as a 19-year-old college student by the late Gary Gossett.

“Working for the Herald was exciting. We had to carry handheld police scan ners and show up to traffic accidents in the middle of the night if we heard them, I learned all about covering city council and reading police reports. We took our own photos, so that was always enjoyable for me,” Drady said.

It was during her time there that she crossed paths with Thomas Edwards, Granite Media Partners’ current executive editor.

“Under Thomas, I was promoted from the Herald newspaper to being the managing editor of the Bulverde Community News,” she said. “Thomas has also been one of my mentors and I’m so excited and thrilled to be working under his leadership again.”

She has already hit the ground running in Austin County and is adapting to the new cities.

“I love the downtown Main Street small town vibe,” Drady said of Sealy. “Everyone is so nice, everywhere I go. People are so personable and you don’t get that as much in the big cities.”

Drady has simple goals for her time at The Sealy News.

“One of my main goals of being a reporter is to make sure that people are informed about what their government officials are doing, what’s going on in their community, the new laws that are being passed that are going to affect them,” Drady said. “I feel somewhat that our roles as journalists and reporters are to be an educator. We’re educating people and we’re helping them understand what’s going on.”