Each summer I take to the backroads of the Old North State (with faithful sidekick, Webber, as companion) delivering free, on-site community journalism.

Each summer I take to the backroads of the Old North State (with faithful sidekick, Webber, as companion) delivering free, on-site community journalism workshops to an average of 15 newspapers each year. So far, that’s 75 papers down – 105 to go!

Workshops, like this one at the Mount Airy News, begin with the donning of ice-breaking Pac-Man “news antennae.” Editor Phil Goble took this photo.

Each summer I see a lot of North Carolina – much of it through the rearview mirror – as with this view of Pilot Mountain.

Down on the coast at the Brunswick Beacon in Shallotte, Editor Ben Carlson, second from left, joins his staff outside their new offices, complete with palm trees.

A clever rack sales slogan from the Brunswick Beacon tells readers to “Bring Home the Beacon”

The staff of the award-winning weekly, the State Port Pilot, assembles in the foyer of their new building. Editor Ed Harper is at top left. Photo by Jim Harper.

At the Wallace Enterprise, I am presented with a ceremonial “pig” by co-owner Mary Hart Osborne Blackburn as veteran editor Sammie Carter looks on. For an old backshop kid, it doesn’t get any better than this.

Publisher Jeff Byrd, far left, joins his staff in front of the main street offices of the very successful Tryon Daily Bulletin, the self-titled “world’s smallest daily.”

On of the ways community newspapers are thriving is by “clustering” their printing operations at a central location that serves multiple papers. Here in mountain town of Franklin, the press at the Franklin Press serves seven newspapers. In this photo, staffs from several papers pose after a summer roadshow workshop.

In this old photo from the summer of 1984 when I was a journeyman photojournalist, Bob and Peg Allen (and all their sons) paste up another edition of the Wake Weekly. The Allens recently sold the paper to their eldest son, Greg, silhouetted top center against the garage door.

The third edition of “Community Journalism” is dedicated to 91-year-old Virginia Rucker, who is still writing for her Forest City Daily Courier.

Part of the fun of the Roadshow is stumbling across “Roadside Vernacular” such as this muffler car, advertising the services of Keith’s Muffler Shop in in Mount Airy

Earl Teachey of the Wallace Enterprise supplied me with this wonderful bit of roadside vernacular.

The cost of the Roadshow is kept to a minimum by making the workshops day-trips based out of Chapel Hill or my log cabin in Western North Carolina. Looks like we’re grillin’ out tonight.