To take a line from an old Ray Stephens song, &uot;It’s me again, Margaret.&uot;

(Hey, don’t knock me for quoting Ray Stephens. This IS the south, after all.)

Most of you Bertie County readers are familiar with me already since I wrote at the Bertie Ledger-Advance for the last two years.

You may also know me as Jennipher Daughtrey, which I went by during my marriage, but I have now taken back my maiden name.

Anyway, here I am again, doing the same old thing, just at a different publication… ironically, I’m right back where it all began.

I got my start writing here at the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald. I worked as a sports stringer in 2004 during basketball season, covering mainly Lawrence Academy, Ridgecroft School and Bertie High School.

Those same students and countless new ones at other area schools will undoubtedly see me next year at the start of basketball season, and during softball and baseball seasons as well.

Football’s the only thing I stay away from.

I don’t even try to pretend I understand the sport.

Call me a typical female all you want, but I see football as a bunch of men running around in tight pants and shoulder pads, throwing each other on the ground.

Basketball, on the other hand, is a fun spectator sport.

I was never coordinated enough to play myself, but I love watching the games and writing about them.

It’s simple and there’s hardly ever a dull moment, so it makes for a good viewing experience.

Baseball and softball, too, are enjoyable because the crowd gets so involved.

Even the smells of the ballpark help contribute to a more pleasurable experience.

I have a hard time writing about something if it completely bores me – maybe that’s why I know I wouldn’t like writing about football.

My favorite form of writing, though, is columns.

I enjoy the freedom of being able to state my opinion on this page, since when writing regular articles, journalists are required to be unbiased.

To those of you who don’t know me yet, you’ll quickly learn that I’m quirky, opinionated, and perhaps overly fond of writing about touchy subjects and current world events.

A word of advice: don’t ever take me too seriously.

I write the vast majority of my columns with a dash of facetiousness and a whole lot of dry-wittedness.

I like to make up my own words as I go along, so if you ever read something in one of my columns that looks fake, it probably is. Speaking of fake words, I think &uot;dry-wittedness&uot; was one.

(See, I’ve started already.)

It’s fun to invent new words.

Maybe I should work for Webster’s… or I could simply run for President. (Good ol’ George Bush certainly has more than his share of made-up words.)

So, readers of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, I look forward to meeting you and working with you in the coming months and years.

Until next week…