#hollywonk

One of our favorite local news stories of all time:

Lost Nanuet Cat, Bailey, Returns Home Monday Morning

Last week, an orange tabby was lost. After several sightings, he returned home. Owner Robin Korines: I just want to thank everybody who kept their eyes open for me and who called and those that sent prayers! Needless to say we are all so excited!

Amanda's crazy #interns story: that time I interviewed Tony Hawk on Coney Island.

I was interning for an awesome urban news site, where we covered tech and marketing. And at the last minute I found out I'd be helping my boss cover Wrath of Cannes -- a Coney Island-based rip off version of the real Cannes festival.

Hosted by a fab ad agency, the contest challenged students to submit their video pitches of ideas for a Tony Hawk app. And Tony was the judge! So my friend/co-reporter and I went over to interview the Hawk himself.

Awkwardly, the first time we asked him for an interview, we didn't realize he was waiting online for the bathroom. So we brushed it off, came back and eventually got our interview!

I'm not big into the scene, but I definitely ripped up some skateboards on the Birdhouse Playstation game in my day.

You guys. Sarah Ganim, 24, won this year's Pulitzer Prize for local reporting! She led the charge on her town paper's coverage of the infamous Penn State sex abuse scandal.

Poynter.com reported:

...she’s been a newspaper reporter since she was a 15-year-old high school sophomore. She was a freelance reporter for the Sun-Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and later a news intern for the Associated Press. In 2008, she graduated from Penn State University, where she wrote for the student newspaper. While in college, she began writing for the Centre Daily Times in State College, Pa., where she covered the courts and crime beat.

Ganim — who has also served as an adjunct professor at Penn State and reported for WZWW Radio State College — went on to become a crime reporter for the Patriot News.