Hello, Sarasota! New Editor is in Town

Hello, Sarasota!

You'll see a new face at the top of this page and on @SarasotaPatch, too, and you're right. That's not William Mansell.

That's Charles Schelle. Well, I'm Charles Schelle.

I'll be your new editor for Sarasota Patch, covering your local meetings, community news, education, the arts and more.

As I get to know this fine city more, I'll sprinkle in more of my flair to the site, building upon the solid base that William left me. 

Oh yeah, we still don't know each other yet. I guess first thing is my last name.

It's pronounced Shuh-lee. Don't ask me why it's not Shell because I'm told it's pronounced however my family tells me, no matter how illogical it is.

I come to Florida from working at the Baltimore Sun Media Group's Community Newspaper division where I was the social media editor for four umbrellas sites housing nine weekly newspapers, three monthlies, a twice-weekly and two magazines.

I maintained the websites daily, enhancing and placing the content reporters and photographers would feed into the site for news covering Baltimore's suburban counties.

Before that, I covered all things Carroll County, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore, winning six awards from the Maryland Delaware D.C. Press Association for local and state government stories as well as entertainment stories, and one for editing a video.

One of my favorite stories was for a sister publication in Howard County, Maryland, about the world of competitive air guitar.

Please, Sarasota, if there is anything quirky, tell me and I'll write about it.

I'm also a proud 2006 graduate of Ball State University, where I majored in magazine writing.

In my spare time, I play ice hockey, something I've done for 14 years now, whether it's in goal or forward and pretending to live the dream. I'm going to try to follow the Washington Capitals from afar, but the way they've played this season, I'll find myself quickly adopting the Lightning.

Still – how did I get here? Though I worked in Baltimore and Columbia, Maryland, I lived 90-minutes-plus away, near Hagerstown, Maryland (that's in Western Maryland). I knew about Patch's mission and wanted to try it in a new state, a new city and get back to writing, in addition to doing the social media funtivities.

I'm always looking to improve ways to serve you – the Patch community. So take a moment and tell me if there's something you'd like to see more of or less of on this site, on Facebook and on Twitter.

And don't be afraid to say hello when I'm around town. I'll plop myself down at Pastry Art today if you want to chat, give me a news tip or ask me what I'm listening to on my iPod.