The longtime journalist plans to spend more time with his wife in retirement.

After nearly 40 years as a newspaperman, 28 of them here at the StarNews, I am retiring.

I want to spend more time with my wife while we're young enough and healthy enough to enjoy it. I'll be looking for freelance writing and editing assignments, and the StarNews has already given me one to work on. Anybody looking for a speechwriter?

I can't imagine a better way to have spent my career. It started in August 1979, when I joined The Charlotte Observer as night metro clerk, doing weather and obits and trying to earn bylines.

I've worked up and down the East Coast. In the mid-1980s, I worked for Viewtron, a Knight-Ridder experiment in what would later become the internet. Customers in the Miami area logged on with boxes atop TV sets, basically a closed system. In addition to news, we had chat rooms, online shopping, airline guides and ticket sales, and other goodies. I was on the world desk the day in 1983 that the Soviets shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007. I wove breaking news accounts from our wire services, chiefly The Associated Press and the Los Angeles Times, and posted the updates as quickly as we received them. It was a brand-new approach at the time, and it was thrilling.

After stops at the Journal of Commerce and the Easton (Pa.) Express, I came to the StarNews in 1990 as No. 2 on the copy desk. I've also worked as business editor here and written three columns ("Minding Your Business," the opinion column "Common Sense" and one about newcomers called "Here Now"). I've written editorials for Scott Nunn, who got here just before me.

In recent years, I've headed up the newspaper's community coverage, giving me the chance to work with the lively nonprofit community in Southeastern North Carolina. I've met and interviewed countless good people helping others.

Then-Managing Editor Julie Martin and I created the Conscience Fair, giving nonprofits a chance to court prospective volunteers. This year the 12th annual event, renamed StarNews Media Cape Fear Cares Volunteer Fair, had more than 700 attendees talking to more than 60 nonprofits.

In October 2017, I and a co-worker were given the literally monumental task of burying a time capsule beside City Hall to mark the newspaper's 150th anniversary. Check out the stone marker by Princess Street. I hope some of you will be around in 2067 when they dig it up and find my business card inside. I wish I'd heeded my rock band's request to toss a Clams CD in there!

Some random memories: In the 1990s, I was interviewing then-Gov. Jim Hunt at an event at the Corning plant when he paused and said, in his deep politician's voice, "We're happy to see the StarNews come out for this event." I found myself answering, "Well, the newspaper thinks it's important to..." I stopped when I realized I was talking like him, and resumed my questioning.

When I was writing the Common Sense column, the photo staff wanted to create a "Garden of Si's Lost Causes," with bricks from the Ice House downtown and the Babies Hospital in Wrightsville Beach, and a piece of a big old magnolia tree that lay in the path of Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.

I've covered a NASCAR race from pit row at Pocono, ridden well over 100 mph in a drag-racing car at Harrells Raceway, rode down the Cape Fear River on the British warship HMS Marlborough, and heard from Kris Kristofferson during an interview how he came to write "Me and Bobby McGee."

I became slightly legendary at the StarNews for eating a cold livermush sandwich during the no-name hurricane that was the March storm of 1993, when we waited from morning till nearly midnight for the power to come back on so we could put together a small newspaper.

Best of all, I've spent my career working with bright, funny and hard-working people, people working to make their communities better.

Our industry is changing. Our staff is smaller than it was. Young people don't read print newspapers. We are retooling our newsroom to adapt to the digital age, to get our stories in front of readers wherever they might look for them -- on their computers, on phones or tablets, in their Facebook and Twitter feeds.

I don't worry about print readership diminishing. I worry about apathy. I worry about a citizenry no longer interested in keeping tabs on elected officials, who don't care about school redistricting or tax rates or film incentives. We still care about those things at the StarNews, along with restaurant openings and local sports scores, and I believe we provide the best coverage of all of that.

If you believe in our mission, I would urge you to support the journalism of StarNews Media. At least consider a digital subscription, giving you complete access to our online offerings, including an e-edition of our print newspaper that you can read on your phone or iPad. Find out how at StarNewsOnline.com/Subscribe. It costs less than a good meal out, and it's a great way to help your community.

Meanwhile, I'll see you around town.