Greetings to all of you in the Powell community as I make my first published appearance in the pages of the Tribune.

As you see below, I’m Dan Hoehne, with the last name pronounced hay-nee, and though that pronunciation might seem odd, it is a relatively common European last name, spelled differently in different countries and I happened to get the German version.

I grew up 20 minutes north of Chicago and am therefore a life-long, die-hard Cubs fan, as I’ve heard one of my predecessors was.

Even before I could drive, my friend Pete and I would hop on a bus in our hometown, ride it to the nearest El station and take the train down to just across the street from Wrigley Field.

There, we would stand in line for the bleacher seats and catch the tail end of batting practice from our second-row seats in right field.

We had learned that the first throng of people entering in would rush to left field, leaving right field wide open, as none of the seating was reserved.

We then found out that getting in the front row wasn’t so great, because the ushers would make you sit, and when you were seated, the wall blocked half your vision.

I’ve probably been to Wrigley Field more than 200 times in my life, and the view of it upon walking up that last step to take it all in still gives me the chills.

And after a lifetime of my fandom winding up in disappointment, at least the team looks geared up for perennial success over the next few years — though as any true Cubs fan would quickly do after saying such a thing, knock on wood.

My sportswriting journey began in the fall of 1996 when I started as a stringer with the Chicago Daily Herald, where I covered football, basketball and baseball and rarely was at the same school more than once.

In 2003 I got my first full-time job with a small-town newspaper in northern Wisconsin, then a small town in south-central Florida in 2006, before moving to western Colorado in December of 2014.

One of my goals in childhood was to write for the Chicago Tribune, covering the big-league stars, but in traveling this string of community newspapers, covering student-athletes in all kinds of sports, I’ve discovered this should have been the goal all along.

To my way of thinking, prep sports is the last stage where players are playing purely for the love of their games.

I covered a community college in Florida, and while the love of the game is still within those athletes, it is a whole other level of focus and training, and really becomes a virtual job.

And while I started out covering the games I grew up playing, and therefore knew best, working at newspapers in all these different areas has exposed me to all kinds of sports.

Wrestling, swimming, soccer, tennis, gymnastics and volleyball are some of the many more common sports I’ve gotten to know, with a few wrinkles thrown in depending on the area.

In northern Wisconsin they have cross-country ski teams, in Florida boys and girls weightlifting and in Colorado, rock climbing teams.

This career also gave me the joy of sports photography.

I had never had any training with cameras, no experience, but as I was heading to my first game to cover at my first full-time job, a football game, I was handed a camera.

I literally asked them, “what am I supposed to do with this?”

Fortunately, digital cameras make it that much easier, and I’ve discovered that the combination of having been an athlete, giving me insights and anticipation as to get the best views and angles, and repetition has really given me some chops as a sports photographer.

There have been great experiences and connections along the way, having followed a baseball and basketball team to the Final Four in their state playoffs, and having made connections with student-athletes that have gone on to play their sports on the DI level and even professionally.

Some of those include the top distance runner on the University of Florida’s women’s track team, a former point guard with the Southern Miss women’s basketball team, a red-shirt football player with the Florida Gators and a pitcher in the Cubs’ minor-league system.

There have been many others that went on to play at the DIII level, community college, etc., and saw their playing days eventually come to an end.

But for so many others, as I wrote above, their high school careers are the extent of their athletic journey, and I see it as my mission to highlight as much of that as I can.

Kids still playing for the love of the game, giving it their all, celebrating the victories, pushing through the losses, and the lessons learned from both.

I’ve seen the excitement and joy of people when they, or their son or daughter, grandson or granddaughter’s action picture from a recent game gets in the paper.

Even the widened eyes and smile when their name gets mentioned for having an effect on the game, meet or match.

I have won a couple of awards for my writing, and likely would have won more for both writing and photography if we’d had time to submit them at my previous papers, and those are great validation for the job I do.

But it means that much more to me that my work is enjoyed and valued by the community I’m covering.

I have had the good fortune of serving that purpose in the communities I’ve worked in, and look forward to continuing that here in Powell.