I'm not sure what happened, but apparently Kim Underwood has left the employ of The Winston-Salem Journal. Since moving to Winston-Salem in '04 I've enjoyed reading Kim's work in the Journal and, more importantly to me, I've enjoyed shooting the breeze with him over a cup of coffee on a few occasions.  I even had the opportunity to rub elbows with him for the day job when he covered the Triad Apartment Association's Labor of Love project last winter, and it was a great experience.

Apparently I'm not the only one who is bummed by Kim's leaving the paper. Linda Brinson, former Journal editorial page editor, wrote a "Letter to the Editor" about it:

For many years, his wise and gentle columns touched us all, particularly the columns about his dog, Buster, and the children in his life, Sparkle Girl and Doobins. Kim also is a skilled, highly professional reporterdevoted to fairness, integrity and ethics, qualities that are too often lacking in today’s journalism. He will be missed, and the Journal is diminished by his leaving.

Like I said, I don't know what happened, but I do know that the Journal's lost another good person.