Mike Mandell came to the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel in April 2022 after spending five and a half years with The Ellsworth American in Hancock County, Maine. He came to Maine out of college after graduating from the Missouri School of Journalism in 2016. He spent 2015 as the Mizzou football beat writer for the Columbia Missourian after previously covering high school sports and Mizzou women’s basketball for the newspaper. He lives just outside of downtown Waterville, less than a mile from the Morning Sentinel newsroom.