BRANDON — The Reporter has a new reporter/news editor.
Publisher Angelo Lynn, who has been editing and reporting for the newspaper for the past eight months, announced that Mat Clouser — a former chef in Austin, Texas for almost 20 years, a graduate of Vermont’s New England Culinary Institute (Montpelier campus) and also of Goddard College — jumped into the role this past week and has been introducing himself to the area communities and writing stories for this week’s newspaper.
“His passion for writing and telling community stories, his love of the town and of Vermont, and his desire to make a positive difference in the area communities we serve all make Mat a great fit for The Reporter,” Lynn said.
Clouser said he left kitchens “to pursue a lifelong passion for writing.”
“I fell in love with Brandon from the first moment I rolled into town and I feel extremely fortunate to be able to pursue my passion and contribute to the community in whatever ways I can as news editor.”
While Clouser was born in Texas and raised mostly in Colorado, he has spent time in Vermont since he was a pre-teen in the late 1980s. His mother and stepmother and two sisters and their families live in the Stowe-Waterbury area. His father also graduated from Goddard College.
He has been a Brandon resident for just over a year, and has been living in Vermont for the past two years, having lived in a cabin in the Moscow area of Stowe before moving to Brandon.
He is married to his wife, Miranda Jane, who is an LCMHC specializing in trauma therapy and Somatic Experiencing. They have no kids, he said, but do have two old dogs: Max and Floyd. They bought a house near the center of Brandon about a year ago.
“We chose Brandon because we wanted a change of pace from city life,” he said, adding that “its relative proximity to my and my wife’s parents (hers are in the Hudson Valley); its beauty, charm, and proximity to nature; the vibrancy of the community (and the ability to walk to almost everything); and its commitment to the arts were also reasons we chose Brandon — in particular for proximity to the poets and programming at the Ruth Stone House in Goshen (as I am also a poet).”
Clouser and Lynn will work together for the next several weeks, during which time Lynn said he hopes to be able to conduct a “listening tour” of the communities The Reporter serves to better serve the area.
“The Reporter has been in transition for the past couple of years, and we need to refocus our efforts to make this the best newspaper it can be to serve the area,” Lynn said. “One first step is to reach out to get our readers’ ideas on how to make the newspaper better and deliver the news they want to read.”
Community coffees, surveys and other opportunities to engage with the editors will be initiated this summer, he said.
