LUMBERTON — The Robesonian newspaper, in reaction to the absence of sports activity that has resulted from COVID-19, will modify the size of its sports section for an undetermined amount of time.

The outbreak has resulted in the shutdown of spring sports for local high schools, The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and national sports, including NBA basketball, the PGA Tour, NASCAR and college basketball, which would be in the middle of March Madness.

“That has made it difficult for our two sports guys to even fill up the section,” said Donnie Douglas, the editor of the newspaper.

Readers will see the sports page, or pages, moved into the back of the A section from time to time for the foreseeable future.

Douglas pointed out that Sports Editor Jonathan Bym and sports writer Chris Stiles will continue to look for local sports stories to share with their readers. People with information or suggestions can email Bym at [email protected] or call him at 910-816-1977.

“They are particularly interested in perhaps sharing some seldom-told stories about former athletes in the county who people might not be aware of, or even sports teams,” Douglas said.

In the meantime, both will help out in the coverage of other news.

“When this happened, both guys came to me and indicated an interest in trying to help with the coverage of this virus, as well as other local news,” Douglas said. “I was impressed with their initiative. They understand the difficulty in covering such an event and want to help out. In fact, both have already done so.”

Staff report