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Takeuchi starts as reporter at Havre Daily

After more than a decade living in Japan, Kristen Takeuchi began her new job Tuesday as a news reporter with the Havre Daily News.

Takeuchi, 34, said she has always had a passion for writing and is excited about her job.

"I want to help to provide the news that people are reading, keep them informed and help build relationships," she said.

Takeuchi, the daughter of Havre High School Principal Mike Haugen, said that she and her son Len, 3, moved to Havre to be closer to family.

Takeuchi said she learned last month about the open reporter position when her mother, Denise, texted her a picture of an advertisement that ran in the Havre Daily News.

She said her mother encouraged her to apply for the job.

"She said 'this is your dream, you always wanted to work in writing, work for a newspaper, you should apply,'" Takeuchi said.

Havre Daily News publisher Stacy Mantle said Takeuchi will make a good addition to the paper.

"I am very pleased to welcome Kristen to our team," Mantle said. "With her family roots lying in Havre and her journalism background we are gaining a valuable employee."

Takeuchi said she was born in Havre but she and her family moved to Scobey when she was a baby and then to Spokane, Washington, where she grew up.

She graduated from Eastern Washington University in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts in communications and public relations with minors in journalism and French.

In college, she developed an interest in Japanese culture while working with Japanese exchange students, Takeuchi said, adding that a week after completing her classes, she moved to Japan and taught English at an eikawa, an English conversation school in Osaka.

Despite not having majored in education. Takeuchi said that given her father, mother and sister are all educators, the path was not a surprise.

"We called it the Haugen family curse, you got into education no matter what you studied," she said.

She became a teacher at an Early Learning Center, or ELC, in Osaka in 2010 and then became ELC lead teacher for Tokyo area schools.

Though Japan is a great country, she said, Havre is the type of small, friendly community she did not have in Tokyo.

Takeuchi said she looks forward to reporting on K-12 education, law enforcement and courts, and other areas she is less familiar with, such as agriculture.

"So I am very interested in doing stories where not only can I report but I can learn things," she said.

 

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