Email: Caroline.Evans@patch.com
Phone: 708-275-5362
Hometown: Houston, Texas
Birthday: Nov. 17

Caroline Evans first discovered her love for news and current events as a page in the House of Representatives her junior year in high school. Sharing an elevator once with Cokie Roberts helped. Her first news job was shadowing photographers as an intern for a German newspaper while taking a year off between high school and college.

Caroline earned a B.A. in history from McGill University in Montreal, where she cut her literary teeth on music reviews and artist interviews for the campus newspaper. While she spent a year of service as an AmeriCorps volunteer in a charter school on Chicago's West Side, she freelanced for Paste, Venus Zine and NPR.org's Song of the Day. 

In 2010, she earned an M.A. in journalism from the University of Missouri, where she reported on education and worked as an assistant city editor for the arts and neighborhoods beats at the Columbia Missourian newspaper.

Caroline loves music, travel and food, and she is experimenting with vegetarianism. She can often be seen around Mokena riding her bike, a gray Cannondale Comfort.

Want to know more? Watch my Welcome Video.

Beliefs
At Patch, we promise always to report the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adhere to the principles of good journalism. We also acknowledge that true impartiality is impossible because human beings have beliefs. In the spirit of simple honesty, we encourage editors to reveal their beliefs to the extent they feel comfortable. This disclosure is not a license to inject our beliefs into stories or dictate coverage according to them. Rather, we hope the knowledge our beliefs are on the record will cause us to be ever mindful to write, report and edit in a fair and balanced manner. If you ever see evidence we failed in this mission, please let us know.

 Politics
I have voted for both elephants and donkeys, but I would never vote for a yellow dog. I do tend to be pretty liberal on most issues, but I firmly believe that democracy functions best when a myriad of opinions is represented.

 Religion
I was raised Episcopalian, so I know the difference between a salad and a dinner fork pretty well. I am still a Christian, and I think finding peace and comfort in religion is a pretty cool thing. If someone else finds peace and comfort in a religion different from my own, that's pretty cool, too.

Local Hot Button Issues
Right now, I think the biggest issue in Mokena is the budget crisis facing the school district. Schools are a linchpin of communities, and I plan on covering this issue constantly.

Business and economic development are also pretty big here, and we'll be keeping track of new businesses and finding out what's going on with all those empty storefronts.