Observer editor said she joined the paper in awe. By September, she’ll leave that way, too

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When a then-23-year-old Sherry Chisenhall was offered a job with the Charlotte Observer in 1986, she was so shocked that she forgot to ask about the pay.

She made a second rookie mistake weeks later — working her last day, a Friday, in Biloxi, Miss., and then agreeing to start work that Monday in Charlotte.

Chisenhall, now 58, said she walked through the double doors at the top of the escalator in the old Observer newsroom at Tryon and Stonewall with feelings of “awe and reverence.”

In September, she says she’ll leave that way, too.

The Observer’s editor and president announced her departure Monday morning, telling her newsroom staff that she is leaving on her own terms and with full confidence in the paper’s mission and continued vitality.

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