At the foot of my bed sits a beat-up blue footlocker with a faded mailing label made out in my mother's firm hand: Melanie Ann Sill, 456 Morrison Hall, UNC-Chapel Hill.

Thirty years ago, I set off from Hawaii for college in North Carolina carrying a few suitcases and a large packet of hopes. Mom and Dad mailed the footlocker ahead, and it was there waiting when I checked into the dorm.

I'll never forget getting off the plane (dressed for some now-forgotten reason in a three-piece brown suit) into the moist embrace of an August afternoon.

Raleigh-Durham Airport wasn't international yet, and outside its single terminal waited a fraternity volunteer in a very small car who had signed on to pick up this out-of-state freshman.

He dropped me and my suitcases at the traffic circle of my high-rise dorm, jammed with cars and people moving in.

I knew no one and had never been to North Carolina, yet what I recall more than anything is the elation I felt at the adventure ahead.

The trip to college turned into a first job, then a second. My hopes were exceeded by a life full of blessings: marriage, friends, community and a career far beyond any plans I'd made.

North Carolina became home.

Now I face a new adventure as I head west to become editor of The Sacramento Bee. John Drescher, managing editor here for five years, takes my place as The N&O's executive editor.

The Bee shares many traits with The N&O. It's a state capital paper with a long history (The Bee marked its 150th anniversary this year), and strong traditions of investigative reporting and public service.

Like The N&O, the Sacramento paper's history is entwined with the story of its region and state, and the future of both operations rests in part on how well we serve our communities for today and tomorrow.

As part of the McClatchy Company, The Bee and The N&O are pushing to carry journalistic values forward in the most competitive era anyone can recall -- a post-revolutionary time, with the revolution being the Internet's effect on communication.

The challenges are tremendous, as are the opportunities.

For five years as executive editor of The N&O, I've considered myself both a steward of our best traditions and a champion of new approaches that bring journalistic thinking into 21st-century life.

From the first paper that rolls off the press to the last page sent to the press for the next day's edition, newspapers were 24-hour operations long before the term was fashionable. The N&O was one of the first papers to go online, and soon after, adopted innovation (alongside accuracy, fairness and other fundamentals) as a core value.

During my 25 years here, I've worked with colleagues throughout our company who care deeply about their community and feel proud of what we do together.

I've loved working in an operation that's linked from end to end, and I've seen the values of service and teamwork lift The N&O on too many occasions to count: during and after hurricanes such as Fran and Floyd; through the Sept. 11 attacks and afterward; through celebrations including the Hurricanes' Stanley Cup hockey championship in 2006.

Those values inspired our best "enterprise" work, the term for investigative reporting and other news we find as opposed to news that breaks, as well as coverage of arts, writers and culture that gives The N&O such a strong sense of place.

As executive editor, I have enjoyed a lively conversation with people who wrote, phoned, sent e-mail or posted comments in online Editors' Blog. People here expect a lot of The N&O, and vice versa. These readers offered criticism, suggestions and occasional praise, and in the end they helped make The N&O better.

Journalism works best when it serves democracy and community. Some of our best work empowered people to change their lives or affect public policy. I treasure a sheaf of handwritten notes from people in Eastern North Carolina who found voice through our 1995 series on hog farming as much as the Pulitzer Prize The N&O won for "Boss Hog" and the coverage that followed.

I carry that spirit with me to Sacramento as I journey back across the continent I first crossed 30 years ago. Success there, as here, will mean using our news resources to inform and empower our community.

But unlike the 18-year-old girl who boarded a jetliner in Honolulu, at 48 I also know what I'm leaving behind.

Thanks to all of you in this great state who welcomed me, taught me and helped me in so many ways. I will miss North Carolina, but most of all I'll miss its people.

I think I'll keep that footlocker.