Celeste Calvitto is the new political reporter at the Rapid City Journal. After getting her start in newspapers in Florida, she's been many places:
Since then, I've worked as everything from production editor to executive editor at newspapers in Chattanooga, Tenn.; Atlanta, Ga.; Sarasota, Fla.; Charlotte, N.C. and for a group of weekly newspapers just north of New York City. (I should clarify Denise's description of me in her column. I'm not exactly a New Yorker — it just happened to be the last place I lived before coming to South Dakota. When people ask where I'm from, I never know what to say, since I was born in Florida to parents who were from Rhode Island and Philadelphia, grew up in Ohio and spent the last six months of high school in Maryland, where my dad still lives.)
My connection to politics doesn't end with my work 30 years ago. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that in 1994 and 1996, I took a hiatus from journalism to manage a couple of campaigns for the New York State Legislature. Both candidates were friends of mine. And the incumbent we ran against (and lost to) later became a close friend. She was among a number of politicians — both Democrats and Republicans — who said some nice things at the farewell party my friends threw for me when I left New York three years ago. Those same politicians also made good-natured jokes about South Dakota, and when it was my turn to take the microphone, I said, "All that stuff you've just heard about South Dakota — well, that's why I'm going there."
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