Greene County News

JAMESTOWN — Columnist Gery L. Deer of Jamestown has just moved his long running op-ed newspapers series, “Deer in Headlines,” into the 21st Century.

As of Sept. 27, fans of the series can listen to the audio version on their computer, tablet or smartphone at www.MyGreeneRadio.com.

A 25-year veteran of freelance journalism, the origins of Deer’s column, which first hit the pages of the Xenia Daily Gazette in 2008, began with an editorial in protest of a required college class having been cancelled — his efforts got the class reinstated. But this was only the beginning.

In 1993, he wrote a couple of letters to the editor and was soon asked to do a few guest columns for the Gazette, followed by a monthly technology series that lasted into the early 2000s. “Deer in Headlines”came in 2008 while working as a features editor with the Brown Publishing chain. In fact, it was one of his fellow editors who inspired the column’s quirky name.

Although the column made the leap in 2014 from the printed page to the small screen as a monthly feature on the WDTN-TV2 program, “Living Dayton,” this is Deer’s first venture into the podcast world.

MyGreeneRadio.com is an online radio station that launched in February of 2015 by long-time broadcast professional Todd Hollst to provide locally produced content along with music and area information. The format offers listeners a variety of music and a menu of podcasts featuring locally focused topics from philanthropy to sports.

“When Todd suggested he would like to have a podcast version of ‘Deer in Headlines’ for his radio site, I was honored, for sure, and it seemed a logical progression,” Deer said. The syndicated print version reaches about 50,000 readers per week, with a significant and growing digital following.