A Friday reflection from the publisher · May 1, 2026
Good morning, Wake Forest.
It’s Friday. The dogwoods have mostly finished, spring has settled in for good, and if you’re reading this before your second cup of coffee, I hope you’re taking a minute to appreciate that we live somewhere worth paying attention to.
I’ve been thinking a lot this week about why I do this work. Why I watch every Board of Commissioners meeting, sometimes staying up past 2 or 3 in the morning doing research and writing. Why I file public records requests. Why I spend hours trying to make sense of a zoning amendment or a budget line item that most people will never notice. Why I chose to come home in the first place.
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The easy answer is that I’m from here. Twelve generations. My family’s been in North Carolina since before there was a North Carolina. My dad opened the first Food Lion in this town. I grew up off Ligon Mill back when part of it was still dirt and gravel. My grandfather and I both have bricks at the Wake Forest Veterans Memorial — two generations of the same family, names set in stone, right here.
But that’s not the whole answer. Plenty of people leave the place they’re from and never look back. I left at 18 to enlist in the Navy. I spent the next thirteen years deployed to places most people will never see, doing work I still can’t fully talk about. I flew intelligence missions over Iraq. I was embedded with special operations forces in Diyala Province during the surge. I saw what happens when institutions fail, when accountability disappears, when the people in charge stop answering to anyone but themselves.
I came home in 2018 and used my GI Bill to buy a house in an established neighborhood off Main Street. Not because I was nostalgic. Not because I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. I came home because after all those years and all those miles, I knew this place was worth defending.
Wake Forest is not perfect. We’ve got our problems. We’re growing faster than our infrastructure can keep up. We’ve got equity issues we haven’t fully faced. We’ve got a Town Hall that doesn’t always want to be watched as closely as I watch it. We’ve got elected officials who sometimes forget that public service means answering hard questions, not just cutting ribbons.
But here’s what else we’ve got.
We’ve got neighbors who show up. We’ve got volunteers who set up chairs and cook meals and coach Little League and run the food pantry and organize the festivals that make this place feel like a community instead of just a cluster of subdivisions. We’ve got town staff — from Public Works to Planning, from the fire station to the front desk at Town Hall — who show up every day with professionalism and care, even when the work is thankless. We’ve got civic leaders who have spent years making this place better without asking for credit.
We’ve got a mobile farmers market partnership with Ripe for Revival so people in food deserts don’t have to drive to Harris Teeter. We’ve got a compost program so food waste doesn’t rot in a landfill. We’ve got greenway projects that connect neighborhoods so kids can bike to school safely. We’ve got a Meaningful Housing Coalition working to make sure teachers and firefighters and town employees can actually afford to live in the town they serve.
Those things didn’t happen by accident. They happened because people decided Wake Forest was worth the work.
The work of community happens because people show up. Photo: Town of Wake Forest
Why I Started Wake Forest Matters
I started Wake Forest Matters because I believe local journalism is not optional. It’s the connective tissue of a functioning democracy. It’s what keeps power accountable. It’s what makes sure the people making decisions on your behalf actually have to explain themselves.
Local journalism is not optional. It’s the connective tissue of a functioning democracy.
The skill set I learned in Navy intelligence — how to find the truth in places where people are actively trying to hide it, how to track patterns, how to ask the questions no one wants to answer — that doesn’t just apply to war zones. It applies to a zoning meeting. A budget hearing. A school board vote. A town council that would rather not be watched too closely.
I do this work because I love this town. Not in some abstract, sentimental way. I love it in the specific, boots-on-the-ground way that makes me pull up the meeting video at 8 p.m. on a Tuesday and watch every minute, taking notes, so you don’t have to. The kind of love that keeps me up past 2 a.m. cross-referencing budget documents and zoning maps and public records requests because the story won’t let me sleep until I get it right. I love it enough to ask the hard questions. To file the records requests. To write the stories that make people uncomfortable when uncomfortable is what’s needed.
I do this work because my neighbors deserve to know what’s happening in their own town. Because the people raising kids here deserve a government that answers to them. Because the small business owners on White Street and the teachers at Heritage High and the folks trying to keep their property taxes manageable while the town grows around them deserve journalism that gives a damn whether they’re being heard.
Wake Forest Town Hall — where the decisions that shape our town get made. Photo: Town of Wake Forest
What’s Next
I’m not running for anything. Not today.
But I’ll be honest with you — I’ve been thinking about what it means to serve this community in a bigger way. I’ve been thinking about the gap between the town we are and the town we could be. I’ve been thinking about whether showing up with a notebook is enough, or whether there’s more I should be doing.
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I don’t have an answer to that yet. Maybe I never will. But I know this much: Wake Forest matters. Not because it’s where I’m from. Not because my family has been here since the 1730s. Wake Forest matters because of what it’s becoming — a place where people from everywhere are putting down roots, raising families, building something together.
Wake Forest matters because of what it’s becoming — a place where people from everywhere are putting down roots, raising families, building something together.
This town belongs to all of us. Photo: Town of Wake Forest
My Ask
So here’s my ask as we head into the weekend: Pay attention. Show up. Ask questions. Hold your elected officials accountable. Support the local businesses that make this place more than just a bedroom community for Raleigh. Volunteer if you can. Vote if you’re registered. Talk to your neighbors. Learn their names.
Because this town belongs to all of us. Not just the people who’ve been here the longest. Not just the people with the biggest houses or the loudest voices. All of us.
Wake Forest is what we make it. So let’s make it something worth staying for.
Happy Friday, y’all.
Tom Baker is a Navy veteran, 12th-generation North Carolinian, and the founder and publisher of Wake Forest Matters. He lives off Main Street with his family.
Got a story tip or something Wake Forest needs to know about? Email publishers@wakeforestmatters.com
Wake Forest Matters is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom covering Wake Forest, NC. We report on local government, schools, business, and community life — free to read and reader-supported. Fearless. Local. Loud.
