Mike Russo, Neighbor

Mike Russo is a lifelong Monroe resident and a 2002 graduate of Housatonic Community College with an Associate Degree in Liberal Arts/Journalism.

As a student, he was the managing editor of the college newspaper, Horizons and completed an internship as a staff writer for the Connecticut Post.

During that time Mike was also a broacast technician at WTNH News Channel 8 in New Haven and worked part-time in HCC's outreach department.

He was awarded the Post Publishing Prize for Outstanding Achievement and the Connecticut Cooperative Education Assosciation Student of the Year Award for Journalism at graduation in 2002.

Mike landed his first full-time reporting job in Monroe, writing for the Chronicle  in 2005, a short-lived but highly successful paper that gave him the chance to know the community he had lived in his entire  life.

From there Mike moved on to Voices, covering the towns of Woodbury and Bethlehem for just over a year, before heading over to the North Haven Citizen and its owner, the Meriden Record-Journal.

Mike also spent some time as a multimedia reporter at the Danbury News-Times writing stories and shooting video for the newspaper's website.

Most recently, Mike was a freelance reporter for the Valley Independent Sentinel, a non-profit news website covering the Naugatuck River Valley.

And now it's back to Monroe, with a few more years under his belt, a little less hair on his head and some hard lessons learned along the way.  

Mike is happy to be home again and is looking forward to great things ahead for all of us.