Rudi Raynes Raynes chats with Mike Herron

June 23, 2010

The visibility of Putnam County has risen dramatically since Poca basketball standout and three-year Concord graduate Rudi Raynes joined the WCHS "Eyewitness News" family.

"If it bleeds, it leads," Raynes told Putnam Rotarians today, "and a shooting on the west side of Charleston takes headlines over the many good things happening in Putnam."

But Raynes has gained crime-and-violence viewers too with the WCHS "Fugitive Files," a regular feature which in its short run has cleared 254 criminals and "alleged felons" off the street in the Kanawha Valley.

She did an internship at WCHS, and shortly after graduation, she was offered a professional opportunity with the station. "We want you here," she was told, "because we need the numbers in Putnam County. You've grown up in Putnam County, and no one who has come in for this job has known it any better than you."

She asked, "What do you want me to do?"

They told her, "Anything going on in Putnam County, just do it."

News media is a rigorous calling, but every time she became discouraged, she was told, "Just remember why you're here. You are here because you are a hometown girl. And no one knows news better in their hometown than someone who has lived there. No one from Michigan is going to come in and tell the story of Putnam County better than you can."

Raynes remembered growing up. "The news media was always Charleston, Charleston, Charleston, Huntington. I asked, 'Don't they ever do anything in Poca? In Buffalo?'"

"Last week, four of my five stories were from Putnam County."

"There's always a story to be found," said Raynes. "We want to do a story about Route 35. The new emergency services building. There are so many great things happening in Putnam County, and they need to be covered.

"We have great industry, great business here, but it's still country enough and calm enough that you feel safe here. It's very nice.

"And after a year of my telling my boss why Putnam County is so great -- he moved here.

"And he said that it was the best move he ever made."

The hometown reporter comes from a hometown family. Her parents are respected long-standing educators. Dad coached her in basketball beginning in third grade, and mom recently retired as a language arts teacher at Poca High.

And as for Putnam Rotary? In 2005, Raynes won a Rotary scholarship as :Most Outstanding" student at Poca High, where she had managed the school's closed-circuit TV station, W-DOT and performed in the championship "Visual Volume" show choir.