Michael Prochaska is an award-winning journalist who joins the Summerville Journal Scene and the Berkeley Independent after nearly 14 years as reporter, editor and later co-publisher of The Oconee Enterprise, a local newspaper just outside of Athens, Georgia.

A graduate of the University of Georgia, Michael fell in love with community journalism while writing for the Red & Black student newspaper and interning at a weekly newspaper in Madison, Georgia, which is known for its antebellum homes that were too beautiful for General Sherman to burn down during his infamous March to the Sea. 

It was in that small town that Michael discovered that no story is too small to print and that a newspaper can bring a community closer together and connect people to each other. Groundbreakings for large developments share space with highlights of mom-and-pop businesses. Likewise, a high school athlete scoring a winning goal means just as much to a family as a profile on an alumnus competing in the Olympics.

In reporting on the weekly happenings of a community, Michael took pride in holding government officials and institutions accountable. and he discovered a passion for producing stories that people cherish by displaying them on the fridge or having them framed. In fact, newspaper clippings of Michael and Amanda Prochaska’s 4-year-old daughter, Mary Louise, are preserved in scrapbooks on their bookshelf.

Michael and Amanda have been married for almost 13 years. Both lifelong Presbyterians, they met at a church conference in Montreat, North Carolina, their freshman year in college. They welcomed Mary Louise in December 2021 as a “rainbow baby,” meaning a baby born after a miscarriage. While navigating a miscarriage and infertility in the 2010s, the Prochaskas fostered two girls.