Brenda Autry Journalism Blog

The Story of an Adaptive Athlete Brandon Wood and his twin-brother, Sean Wood, were born prematurely with a condition known as cerebral palsy, or CP for short. CP is a group of disorders that affect a person's balance, and their ability to move and maintain balance and posture. Despite this condition, Brandon Wood is an athlete and has worked hard to overcome the physical challenges that CP presents on a daily basis.  Brandon Wood coaches the beginners boxing class at Ramos Boxing Club in Albany. Wood began coaching about 10 years ago and coaches beginner, advanced, and pro boxers and MMA fighters. Wood graduated from LBCC in 2004 with a degree in criminal justice and afterwards began working with troubled youth, which is what lead him to boxing. Because of the balance issues caused by Wood's CP, he has never been able to compete in either boxing or MMA, but wrestled for six years in middle and high school and trained in other combative sports. He also spent several years compe...

 Historic Downtown Albany has been transformed for Christmas. Here are a few of the window displays you can expect to see: Emma Downtown The Natty Dresser Albany Antique Mall Jordan Jewelers Sniffany's Pet Boutique Oak Creek Collection

  I think the line that sums up this book the most for me is this quote from Lynsey Addario: “As ugly as the controversy was, the protagonists were beautiful.” This really captures the essence of her work. She worked in the midst of some of the most dangerous controversies of our generation, and still managed to find something beautiful within it.  The portrait of the Taliban member leaning his face against the assault rifle (from the Talibanistan  series for the New York Times Magazine, July 2008 and featured on page 252 of the book) she photographed really exemplifies this for me. This man could have shot her and her fellow reporter if he had knows she was lying about who she was, and yet this she made his portrait look absolutely stunning. This is also what differentiates Addario's work from that of other photojournalists. She isn’t always after the action shot, she’s after the human shot. It always looks as though she stopped and thought about how to make this person ...

Joy (left) and Jordyn Edewards train mitts at Ramos Boxing Club in Albany. When you think about mother daughter activities, the first thing that comes to mind probably isn’t Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). But mother daughter duo, Joy and Jordyn Edewards, are challenging the norm and kicking butt along the way. Jordyn Edewards, 22 of Albany, is just rounding off her first year of fighting in amateur MMA.  “I started training about a year and a half ago,” Jordyn Edewards said. “I ran track in college, but my senior year I decided it just wasn’t for me. I needed another athletic outlet and my mom encouraged me to try boxing.” Jordyn Edewards shadow boxes before class begins at Ramos Boxing Club in Albany. Edewards’ mom, Joy Edewards, owns and operates Ramox Boxing Club in Albany. “I encouraged Jordy to train because I thought she needed a change,” Joy Edewards said.  More than just an athletic outlet, Jordyn Edewards needed something she hadn’t found in track, she needed somewhere she...

  Students in the Non-Destructive Testing Intro to Metallurgy class forge chisels on Wednesday, Nov. 16 in the NDT lab on LBCC's main campus in Albany. Instructor Scott Ballard, center, explains how the heat changes the physical properties of the metals to the students waiting their turn at the forge. Students in two lines take turns, round robin-style, placing their chisels in the oven to heat between rounds of forging on of the two anvils available for this lab. NDT student Holen McAllister takes his turn forging his chisel with mallet and anvil. The purpose of the lab is to teach students how metal reacts to different processes and help them to better understand where failures in manufacturing may occur when they begin working in different manufacturing environments and testing real-world parts.