My now six years of being a community newspaper reporter has resulted in some incredible experiences I could never have predicted. I’d like to focus on a specific range of these experiences in this column — meeting and/or interacting with high-profile people.

Before joining Farmville Newsmedia in 2016, I worked for the Suffolk News-Herald in Suffolk. I didn’t really know what the future would hold for me in terms of sports journalism, but I figured I would probably have to advance quite a bit through the ranks of newspapers and journalists before I would interview or cover anybody considered “big time.” Boy, I was wrong.

I learned that the reach of a community newspaper can extend as far as the people from its coverage area will take it.

For example, while working in Suffolk, I interviewed by phone New England Patriots Running Backs Coach Ivan Fears, who grew up in Suffolk. I even received via a Patriots media rep email a quote about Fears from Patriots Head Coach Bill Belichick.

Here in the Heart of Virginia, the trend of covering high-profile people has continued. Just some examples include U.S. Rep. Tom Garrett, R-Buckingham, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, who is from Buckingham, and most recently, I covered U.S. Sen. Mark Warner.

It was Hampden-Sydney College that drew Warner to Prince Edward County last week. He went to the college to speak briefly with students. In this case, I was most struck by how incredible this experience was for the approximately 20 students that gathered in a small classroom to ask him questions and hear him speak.

Rucker Snead, a Hampden-Sydney lecturer in government and foreign affairs, stood at the front of the same classroom earlier that morning and had been teaching a class, talking about the evolution of information and technology as they pertain to warfare. Then later in the morning, standing in that same spot was Warner, the current vice chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence who is helping lead the investigation into Russian meddling in U.S. elections and society at large via technology and misinformation.

I, as well as the students present, can count that as yet another enriching experience.

Titus Mohler is the sports editor for The Farmville Herald and Farmville Newsmedia LLC. His email address is Titus.Mohler@FarmvilleHerald.com.