NOVI, Mich. - When Ed Coury was a student at Ringgold High School in the late 1970s, he had an interest in radio work.
He used to travel to Duquesne University and volunteer once a week to work for a radio station for the blind.
So, it should come as no surprise that some 30 years later, Coury is still chasing his dream.
Today, he works for the Dow Jones as senior editor of the Wall Street Journal Radio Network.
"I do business reports for radio stations around the country," said Coury, a 1978 Ringgold grad. "I do them from my Detroit office and I also do some reports on satellite radio."
Coury has been working in Detroit since 1995 when he left a radio job in Cleveland. He also worked for radio stations in West Virginia and Washington, D.C., working for NBC Radio and Mutual Radio.
Coury left the mid-Mon Valley when he graduated from Ringgold and went to college at the University of Pittsburgh.
He transferred to Duquesne. However, an opening as a news director at a station in Wheeling, W. Va., during his junior year in college caused him to leave school.
"I ended up getting my degree years later," he said. "I got a degree in business administration from Cleary College, near Detroit."
Coury says his still enjoys his work in radio and recalls his days of being interested in the genre when he was in high school.
"I always had an interest in media when I went to Ringgold," said the Finleyville native.
Today, Coury and his wife, Beth, reside in Novi, a suburb of Detroit. They have two children, Eddie, 16, and Kristen, 12.
Even though Coury doesn't have any family in the immediate area - his mother lives in Pittsburgh, as do his two brothers, and his sister lives in Marianna - he still keeps in contact with his old stomping ground.
"I try to make it back at least once a year," he said. "I keep in touch with some of my friend by email and, of course, I'm still a Steelers fan."
Coury never made it to any of his class reunions at Ringgold. And earlier this year, he tried to organize a 30-year reunion from Michigan.
"We tried to put something together for the summer, but we had some time constraints," he said. "But I still have hopes of putting a reunion together for the fall."
Coury said a Web site has been established for classmates - www.Ringgold78.com.
"Classmates can communicate on there and we are trying to see how much interest there is in a reunion," he said.
"So far, it seems like there is a lot of interest so hopefully, we can make it happen."
