This was probably the toughest story I ever had to publish. Not because of anything to do with the content - because I had to fight with my old school, conservative editors for a year before they would print it.

I wrote this article in 2011 for The Press of Atlantic City. I had been writing about the local cranberry economy for a few years, and was looking for a new angle when I discovered this little farm that even locals didn't know about.

There were a number of times while I was at The Press of Atlantic City that I broke statewide news and became the only reporter regularly covering that topic. This was one of those ongoing stories.

I loved finding fascinating stories that no other publications had written about, especially those that were hiding in plain sight. This was one of those that my editors didn't think would turn into anything, but somehow I made sand fascinating.

This watchdog article took me several months to gather data from federal agencies and interview dozens of farmers. It was the first time my newspaper ever took an in-depth look at how often area farms violated labor laws.

This was the most personally meaningful article I wrote as a reporter, because my grandfather participated in the LBI fishing tournament for decades, and I wrote this the year after he passed away.

Most of my best story ideas stem from the same initial thought: "What's up with that?" In this case, it lead to a very popular article in which I coined the term "Ghost Wawas."