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For the first time, I was living on my own. I rented an “apartment” that was in the second story of a house – one room furnished with a bed, a dresser plus a small kitchen and bathroom (shower only). $37 a month.Ross didn’t wait the full three three months. On Monday, Feb. 11, 1974, the day after I turned 20, I was officially named sports editor. This is the story making the announcement along with the picture that would accompany my column:*> Wendell Barnhouse, The Courier-Post’s sportswriter since late November, has been named sports editor effective today.*> Barnhouse came to Hannibal from The Columbia Tribune where he had been a sportswriter for 18 months.*> In Columbia, he covered local and area prep and college athletic activities, as well as contributing weekly columns in golf and tennis.*> Born in Grinnell, Iowa, Barnhouse moved with his family 13 years ago to Columbia and was graduated from Hickman High School in 1972 where he lettered in baseball.*> He will continue to cover the local sports scene in Hannibal with photos and stories and will begin Tuesday an opinion column of sports at all levels.*> With his experience in covering the Columbia area, he expects to bring to the Hannibal area expanded coverage of the sports scene in Northeast Missouri.My first official, full-time newspaper job just happened to be in the town on the Mississippi River that was home to Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain and there are reminders everywhere of the great American writer – Becky Thatcher’s Restaurant, the Fourth of July Tom Sawyer fence painting contest, a Mark Twain museum.The only Twain book I had read was “Tom Sawyer” as a high school assignment. The great man had been dead for over 70 years and just because I was working in his hometown, I didn’t feel haunted by the ghost of a legend. Other than a frog-jumping contest, Mr. Twain avoided sports coverage.I did, though, feel some pressure. I started keeping a journal and reading those thoughts 45 years later reminds me of the yin and yang of trying to be a mature professional living on my own two years after graduating high school. Hannibal was a small town and while I was busy with the job, the evenings were often lonely. I wrote letters to friends (waiting impatiently for them to answer). I also called friends in Columbia just to talk. (My first month’s phone bill was $113, almost a week’s salary. *Gulp*.)