LIHU‘E — The Garden Island welcomes new sports writer David Simon to its growing ‘ohana. Current sports writer Paul Curtis, who will be shifting to cover the cops and courts beat as well as general news, said he is confident
LIHU‘E — The Garden Island welcomes new sports writer David Simon to its growing ‘ohana.
Current sports writer Paul Curtis, who will be shifting to cover the cops and courts beat as well as general news, said he is confident that Simon will be “a capable replacement on the sports desk.”
Simon joins the paper after residing most recently in Hoboken, N.J.
“I decided to move to Kaua‘i after visiting the island a number of times, thanks to a few friends who didn’t mind me crashing on their couch for weeks on end,” he said earlier this week. “Each time I visited I felt more and more like this is where I should be living.”
A graduate of Penn State University, Simon was selected by the Dow Jones Newspaper Fund his senior year to receive a sports copy editing award and internship. Since then, he’s worked at the Erie Times-News in Erie, Penn., freelanced for Major League Baseball and was employed as a newsdesk editor for NBA.com
“I’ve always been a huge sports fan and I probably care a little too much about the Mets, New York Giants, Knicks and Penn State football,” he said. “I played baseball growing up, then basketball and tennis in high school.”
Simon is excited about his new position with TGI because “it’s much more personal than my previous jobs have been.”
“I get to focus on local sports and issues that much of the community has a passion about,” he added.
Curtis in turn said he is looking forward to covering court cases and island crime.
“There was a day when I used to know nearly all the police officers, playing on the same softball team with several of them,” he said Thursday, adding that he plans to meet Kaua‘i Police Department Chief Darryl Perry and several of the officers who have recently joined the team.
“We realized in the aftermath of Ka Loko in 2006 that (landowner James) Pflueger would be a built-in story of the year for years to come, with the various court cases, and getting caught up on those cases is going to be important to me,” he said. “I will rely heavily on Michael Levine’s insight in this case and other ongoing court cases, and already have some ideas for cops- and court-related stories, features and otherwise.”
Paul C. Curtis, staff writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 224) or pcurtis@kauaipubco.com. David Simon, sports writer, can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 237) or dsimon@kauaipubco.com
