To the degree that I hit the ground running in Smithfield, I owe thanks to many people, including Peter Hulth, a longtime Herald reporter who died recently at 87. (I also want to tip my hat to Wingate Lassiter, then The Herald's editor and publisher, and to fellow reporter Doris Cannnon.)

Pete, who had been at The Herald for 31 years by the time I arrived, was a well of knowledge that I tapped often as I oriented myself in a new place. My beats at the time were the Johnston County Board of Education, the Clayton Town Council and the Benson Board of Commissioners. Pete was among the people who brought me up to speed.

Pete also knew every corner of a sprawling, mostly rural county, so if I had a feature story to do in Crocker's Nub or Meadow, Pete could get me there. And if I needed, heaven forbid, to talk to a surviving family member after a traffic fatality or murder, Pete knew which funeral home was likely to be serving the family.

When my wife and I wanted to buy a house in the county, we needed a real-estate agent; Pete recommended one. He also recommended a heating-oil company for the house. Later, when I went in search of a family doctor and an eye doctor, Pete recommended them too, and they're still my doctors.

In 1992, Pete took a well-earned retirement after 37 years at The Herald. I was happy he was able to retire on his terms and in good health, but sad that so much knowledge would no longer be an everyday presence in the newsroom.

That much knowledge has no price tag. I have now been at The Herald for better than 25 years, and I can't say I know as much about Johnston County as Pete did.

May he rest in peace.