Tom Regan of Lovettsville is joining us a local correspondent for Living in LoCo, and he has written an introduction item below. Also, we are on the lookout for a few other correspondents - from Leesburg, Sterling and Middleburg - so e-mail us here if you are interested or want to know more.

More than once in the past year, after I’ve watched my kids’ school bus chug away toward Purcellville or walked with my daughters over to visit one of their friends who own horses, or just looked up at the big sky out my way on the Taylorstown Road near Lovettsville, I’ve thought to myself, “How the heck did I end up in Northern Virginia?”

I don’t think it in a bad way – but with more of a bemused wonderment. Never in my wildest dreams did I see myself settling … quite happily … here.

I’m Canadian by birth, you see, and I lived my first four decades on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean in Nova Scotia. My family has been in Canada since 1710. I like to joke that there wasn’t a graveyard in Halifax (the provincial capital) that didn’t have a Regan in it.

If you see Tom around in your neighborhood, say hello. (Photo courtesy of Tom Regan)

Before 1991, the farthest south I had ever been was Bangor, Maine. And I didn’t really see the need to go much beyond it back then - which is why I believe that one of the wisest things that John Lennon ever said was, “Life is what happens to you while you’re making plans.”

But here are the things you really need to know about me. My wife and I are the parents of four great kids, all under the age of 13. I’ve been a journalist for about 30 years, the last 12 in the United States. Most of that time, I’ve worked as a columnist/blogger or as an editor. I put the first newspaper on the Web in Canada in 1994, the Halifax Daily News – now no longer with us, sadly.

I’ve worked for some pretty decent folks, including The Christian Science Monitor for a decade (I was in charge of building the original Web site in 1995) and NPR. I spent several years as the executive director of the Online News Association.

During my year as Nieman Fellow in Boston in 1991, I met this really cute and very smart girl from Georgia. She knew that someone from Halifax was called a Haligonian. Obviously, I had to marry her. My wife, Barb Petzen, is a Middle Eastern historian who has spent a lot time in that part of the world.

Oh yeah, and the Boston Red Sox: They are my only other real passion … besides my family … and blogging. (You can read my personal blog here)

So no, I didn’t really expect that all this would lead me to Lovettsville. But I have no complaints. It’s a great place to hang out.