It occurred to me last week as I listened to David Kaczynski speak at the mental health conference at the Red Lion Colonial Hotel that, in a way, I'd come full circle.

I had been at the Independent Record for a little more than a year when photographer George Lane and I sped to Lincoln to cover the arrest of Kaczynski's brother, Ted, the man we now know was the Unabomber.

After spending time working at a weekly newspaper in the Idaho Panhandle, the arrest was my first exposure to what I considered to be "real news" -- and what an exposure it was.

George and I hadn't been standing on that quiet country road near Kaczynski's cabin for more than 10 minutes when the first of the "big guys" arrived at the scene.

I can't remember which of the national networks the crew that showed up belonged to, but I'd never seen anything like it, and doubt I ever will again.

Where George and I had been making polite conversation with the FBI and ATF agents at the scene, trying to pluck out a few nuggets of information about what was going on, the network crew barreled right past us, descending on the agents with such an attitude of arrogance and entitlement, I was dumbstruck.

I might add that after the arrival of the network crew, there was no more chatting with the agents -- they quickly set up a perimeter, cutting off contact among the officials and the media.

As the media siege in Helena and Lincoln wore on, reporters and camera crews from all over the world employed a search and destroy mentality in their quest for any grain of information they could find about the Unabomber suspect.

Soon, longtime sources were hanging up on IR reporters when they called -- they were simply used up.

I can't say I blamed them. After all, they had to live in this community, they had to look their neighbors in the eyes every day, and they wanted time to catch their breath and heal.

A decade later, many of those sources the reporters probed for information until they bled are still wary of the media. We found that out when the IR staff returned to Lincoln this year to mark the anniversary of the Unabomber's arrest with a special report in the newspaper.

To say the least, the most important lesson I took from the experience was that a reporter is nothing without her sources in the community. In order to keep those contacts intact, a reporter must treat them with the utmost respect, knowing full well she will see them again and again -- at school plays, at the soccer fields, walking down Last Chance Gulch.

That doesn't mean I've always written about things that people like to hear. I can honestly say I've had some extremely heated conversations with Police Chief Troy McGee and Sheriff Cheryl Liedle over the years over differences of opinion, and I've received more nasty phone calls from members of the public than I care to remember.

But I like to think I've faced every one of those situations with a professional attitude, and the knowledge that I did my best to be fair. I like to think I've always admitted it when I was wrong, and taken my licks when I fell short of expectations.

And if I've been a good reporter in the time that I've worked at the IR, it's because of the people I work with, the sources I rely on, and the community members who have trusted me enough over the years to tell their stories in the newspaper.

You have all played a role in teaching me professional responsibility and dedication, and a whole lot more about giving, courage and grace.

To wrap up, I have to say that being a reporter isn't exactly what I thought it was going to be as a student in Journalism School -- the deadlines, late night phone calls, and adrenaline.

In the end, I've learned it's a whole lot more.

IR Staff Writer Carolynn Bright left the paper Nov. 6.