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UPDATE: Police, family say jealous shooter killed 4 at car wash

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Trump: I would be ‘tougher’ in Brexit talks than UK’s May

<p>If you were a regular reader of Times Leader features pages about a decade ago, you might have come across a feature each week titled &#8220;Mike&#8217;s Night Out.&#8221;</p><p>That space was filled with photos and anecdotes about a 22-year-old features writer and his nightly adventures at local taverns and clubs.</p><p>It was somewhat comical, filled with photos of people he met in his travels and insight into the area nightlife scene at that time.</p><p>Fast forward to today and that 22-year-old is a little bit different.</p><p>Gone are the Thursday nights that turned into Friday mornings at Nightcaps in Edwardsville and the crazy Saturday nights at the Hardware Bar spent with college students and bands who made their way through that downtown club.</p><p>If you haven&#8217;t guessed, that 22-year-old was me. &#8220;Spirited,&#8221; &#8220;a bit unsure of himself&#8221; and &#8220;always up for a good time&#8221; were ways to describe me then.</p><p>My time spent at the Times Leader between 2007 and 2010 was second to none. It was filled with eclectic people from every part of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, interesting stories that I heard on a regular basis, and great colleagues who helped me grow from an obituary clerk to a full-time features writer with a hunger to write stories that would engross readers.</p><p>In 2017, I returned to the Times Leader &#8212; this time, as an account executive, working with some of our valued customers and helping them grow their businesses in this media market. Print, online, digital, direct mail, graphic design &#8211; take your pick. We&#8217;re doing all those types of marketing and more.</p><p>But, I never lost my love for writing; so today we&#8217;re introducing Around Town &#8211; a weekly column where you&#8217;ll read my musings and stories from around the Wyoming Valley. I&#8217;ll share stories of my jaunts to various charity, community and nightly events &#8211; many of which are enriched by my Times Leader colleagues joining and a faithful crew of friends.</p><p>For instance, when Kendra Malinovitch reached out a few months ago asking me to form a team for the annual Big Brothers Big Sisters Game Night at the Woodlands, I quickly recruited a Times Leader group. Marketing Director Renee Sager and Executive Editor Joe Soprano joined me in the activities, which included rounds of Family Feud, Celebrity and Pictionary.</p><p>The event raised thousands for the cause that pairs adults with young members of our community needing some mentorship and good examples. Even though I stumbled when trying to guess a &#8220;celebrity&#8221; that turned out to be our 19th president, Rutherford B. Hayes, we did well at Family Feud. where my hardest question was &#8220;What is the most popular color M&amp;M,&#8221; and Pictionary, during which I somehow managed to produce an image of a bell bottom.</p><p>From the Woodlands for Big Brothers Big Sisters to the Westmoreland Club a few nights ago &#8211; our folks made some rounds.</p><p>At the Westmoreland, our real estate representatives Joyce Langan and Trixie Jackson, in addition to our digital team and executive staff, hosted the first-ever TL DPM (our digital division) marketing seminar on Wednesday, where we educated our faithful realty clientele on how to capture demand and interest online. It&#8217;s not just about popular home-browsing website, Zillow, you see. There&#8217;s Google, Facebook, Instagram, display networks, e-mail marketing, mobile apps and so many other avenues with which to get a message out. We showcased that, and they appreciated our candor.</p><p>Some of those same folks, like the always-impressive Judy Rice from Lewith &amp; Freeman Real Estate, attended an event I co-hosted the following night at Jonathan&#8217;s in downtown Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>You may have heard of Wilkes-Barre POWER! It&#8217;s the local networking group that connects professionals at only the best restaurants and venues in town &#8211; on a monthly basis. I&#8217;m lucky enough to serve on that board alongside Bill Corcoran Jr., Allan Makowski Jr. and Jess Olson.</p><p>Together, we coordinate and plan events where people feel relaxed and comfortable with drinks and food, which on this occasion were superb. The menu consisted of sliced fillet with horseradish sauce, New Zealand lamb chops, stuffed mushrooms, Swedish meatballs, Clams Casino and barbecued shrimp.</p><p>No, I&#8217;m not kidding.</p><p>Owners George DuMont and Jonathan Grimes went all out, and to say we were grateful would be an understatement.</p><p>We&#8217;re hoping our next event, which will be announced soon, draws a similar crowd and reaction.</p><p>Until then, I&#8217;ll just keeping selling some ads.</p><p>See you next week.</p><style>
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<div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Mike McGinley is the Times Leader Media Group&#8217;s major accounts executive. He can be reached at mmcginley@www.timesleader.com or 570-704-3945.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Around Town: Shining a light on our local community and its happenings