Mike Camunas, a native of Tampa, has joined The Laker/Lutz News news team.
He has lived in Pasco County for nearly 40 years and during that time, he has seen the area transform from a place of sparse houses and orange groves into a bustling and thriving community.
While there aren’t many places he hasn’t visited within the area, he’s always on the lookout for something new to see or someone new to meet.
He began journalism on whim. He knew he wanted to write, but wasn’t sure how to achieve that, without his words turning into ramblings in a notebook.
Still, he took a shot.
He approached the Pasco section of The Tampa Tribune, seeking a chance to write.
He scored an assignment to do a community sports feature.
He quickly realized, however, from rewrites in those early days, that he needed more experience.
Undaunted, he plugged away — seeking out potential stories, pitching them and accepting every assignment that came his way.
Those efforts paid off.
He became a go-to freelance reporter for the Tribune in 2004, and funny enough, his first assignment was to cover a high school boys soccer game for his alma mater: Wesley Chapel High.
That story led to other assignments.
About a year later, he was recruited to cover the University of South Florida athletics as a freelancer for The St. Petersburg Times, now known as The Tampa Bay Times.
While doing that, he also was the sports editor for the USF Oracle, the university’s student newspaper,
He received a degree from USF in 2007, with a major in Mass Communications Journalism and a minor in Creative Writing.
Next, the Times hired him to be its community sports editor in Pasco and Hernando counties. In that role, he covered everything from recreation, to youth sports, to even the local golf scene.
He made the switch back to the Tampa Tribune in 2010, becoming the Pasco Tribune sports coordinator for six years. The job involved building five sports pages a week.
At the same time, he was a correspondent for The Associated Press, covering national sporting events and professional sports teams, including the 2008 World Series here in Tampa Bay.
His other writing and reporting experiences have included completing assignments for several local magazines and in nearly every major newspaper throughout Florida.
Editor’s note: We’re happy to welcome Mike Camunas to his new role as a staff writer for our newspaper. We are confident that his experience and enthusiasm will result in interesting, important and fun stories for our readers. If you’d like to welcome Mike or reach out to him with story ideas, email him at .
Published March 02, 2022
