Meet Sara Pequeño, the newest member of the NC Opinion team

From McClatchy and North Carolina Opinion editor Peter St. Onge:

Pequeño joins NC Opinion team

The combined editorial boards of the Charlotte Observer and News & Observer are thrilled to welcome Sara Pequeño to the North Carolina Opinion team.

Pequeño will pursue columns and enterprise reporting and serve as a member of the editorial board. She’ll be based in Raleigh but write about all of North Carolina. She’s a thoughtful reporter and a graceful writer, and she says she plans to use her platform to cover social issues and local politics with empathy and a passion for progressive ideas.

Prior to joining our opinion team, Pequeño worked as the digital content manager at INDY Week, an alt-weekly newspaper based in the Triangle. There, she focused on Orange County and the University of North Carolina system, but she occasionally stepped into other beats focused on social justice and state-level politics. As part of the INDY Week newsroom, she won Green Eyeshade and N.C. Press Association Awards for the paper’s coverage of Black Lives Matter protests, and she received an honorable mention at the 2021 Association of Alternative Newsmedia awards for her story on one man’s experience as an undocumented migrant living in a church during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Pequeño, 24, graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2019 with Bachelors of Arts in media and journalism and political science. In college, she wrote for The Daily Tar Heel and interned at Our State Magazine, and spent a week reporting on the Venezuelan migrant crisis in Medellín, Colombia in 2019 through the journalism school.

Born in Winston-Salem and raised in Mount Airy, Sara loves her home state and wants it to be the best it can be. Her life and those around her have shaped her personally and professionally, and she hopes to continue her work with empathy and nuance. She will continue to do strong reporting centered on the Triangle, but all N.C. readers should contact her with stories you want to tell at spequeno@newsobserver.com.

Anne Springs Close, up close

From Ken Gepfert of Charlotte:

In August 1995, I arrived on Anne Springs Close’s Fort Mill doorstep, unannounced, as a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, seeking comments about her daughter, Crandall Close Bowles.

I didn’t expect to be welcome because Crandall had explicitly instructed everyone in her family not to talk to me as I reported a profile of Crandall. My story was not going to reflect negatively, but Crandall believed it was ill timed because the reason for my visit — her likely promotion to the top job at Springs Industries, marking the return of family leadership to one of the nation’s leading sheet makers — had not been announced. Crandall thought any story at the time was premature, because officially other Springs executives were still in the running for the top job.

But knowing Anne Springs Close’s reputation for speaking her mind — her love of family — I figured I had nothing to lose with an unannounced visit to her home.

“I know who you are,” she responded, when I identified myself on the front stoop. “Crandall told me not to talk to you.” Then she walked into the house, leaving the front door wide open. I took that as an invitation to follow her inside.

Then, sitting on facing chairs, I asked a series of questions, mainly focused on Crandall as a child growing up. She would answer a question or two, then say, “Crandall said I shouldn’t be talking to you.” Then I’d ask another question, and she’d answer it. And so on.

It was not Watergate stuff. Among her disclosures: As the oldest of eight children, Crandall demonstrated the ingenuity and drive of her eccentric grandfather, former Springs chief Col. Elliott White Springs. “Do you have something in your pocket a little girl might like?” she would ask Col. Springs, knowing he always carried chewing gum. She saved her allowance for three years so she could buy a horse, named Nell.

Anne Springs Close clearly relished sharing such stories about her first born. After 30 minutes, I thanked her and as I got up to leave, she repeated, “Crandall told me not to talk to you.” But she didn’t ask me not to use what she said. And when the story was published, Crandall called to say she liked it — and that she knew her Mom couldn’t keep quiet when asked about her family.

This story was originally published August 31, 2021 at 1:53 PM.