Jerry Brahm, Patch Staff

I spent a good part of my adult life leaving the Lehigh Valley. I've lived and worked in Turkey, China and England, but the Valley seems to be my center of gravity. After graduating from William Allen High School and Kutztown University, I went to graduate school at Emerson College in Boston and then City University in London. Traveling abroad changed me in many ways, especially in how I think of other cultures and my own. But it also made me homesick. After more than a decade of working as a teacher and journalist overseas, I returned home, to Allentown. Since then, I've been a journalism teacher and an editor for community newspapers. And now with Patch, it's clear there's no place like home.