I'll stay working for Australian Community Media (ACM) but at the end of July I'll be joining the Port Stephens Examiner.

In March 2022, I moved out of the Lithgow area to the Hunter Region where I built my first home but since then I've been working remotely for the Mercury and doing my best to cover all the latest news and sport.

Now the time has finally come for me to replace that last missing link since moving.

I'm excited to be closing the chapter on my Lithgow journey and I'm looking forward to continuing to grow as a young journalist in a new area and working on the coast.

Port Stephens is one of my favourite holiday destinations and if you know me, you know that I love to fish. I'll definitely be packing my rod and tackle bag to cast a line after a hard day at work.

It's all exciting things ahead as I move to greener pastures both personally and professionally but of course bittersweet is the word that comes to mind when I think about leaving my hometown newspaper.

The Lithgow Mercury was my first journalism job outside of university. It's been my baby since October 2018 and it feels like I'm saying goodbye to a huge piece of me. It's also been an absolute blessing to be responsible for the news in the town where I grew up.

I did my schooling in Lithgow, played sport in Lithgow and became connected to Lithgow through journalism. I'll forever be grateful for that. Not many people are lucky to secure a job particularly in the media field especially in their hometown, but I was one of the lucky ones.

In the last four years I've grown immensely as a young journalist with ACM. I've made a wonderful network of friends and work colleagues, I won an inaugural ACME award for Non-Daily Sport Story of the Year 2021 for my coverage on Lachi Sharp at Tokyo 2020 and I most recently launched a national campaign with nine other incredible journalists called Young and Regional: Find Me a Home. Not bad for a Lithgow Mercury journo, eh?

I started off filing stories for the Mercury and then later joined the Mudgee Guardian crew and then I was tasked with the responsibility of the Oberon Review for the past eight months. These three roles have all made me who I am today and forced me to strive to be the best journalist I can be.

Lithgow was my home and it always will be. It's always going to hold a special place in my heart.

I'm forever grateful for you - our readers, the people I've met, the experiences I've been lucky enough to have and being able to share your stories.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything. It's been an absolute pleasure. I can't wait to see what my future in journalism holds but there's no way I'll forget my roots. Down home runs deep.

With my departure a position has opened up to join the team. If you have a passion for journalism, community and story-telling then I encourage you to apply.

I hope you continue to follow my journey as a young reporter. To keep up to date with what I'm doing you can follow me on Facebook at Alanna Tomazin - Journalist.