Masons Honor MCPR’s Jamie Nash

By Emily Koehler
Assistant Editor

Worshipful Master Stephen Carlisle and Jamie Nash

On Saturday, Jamie Nash received the 2014 Community Builder Award  during a special ceremony at the Sam B. Crawford Masonic Lodge in New Caney.

Nash is a longtime area breaking news and police reporter, and owns Montgomery County Police Reporter, along with her husband, Scott Engle.

The Community Builder Award is given to one person, annually, and is the highest honor a non-Mason can receive. It is given to an individual who displays Masonic behavior by selflessly serving their community, often without public recognition.

According to Worshipful Master, Stephen Carlisle, Nash was given the award to, “recognize her service in contributing to the betterment of the community, and having the character of what a Mason should be… [She] has done a tremendous amount of work in the community through reporting public information with truth and integrity.”

“I am honored and humbled to be the recipient of this award, and so grateful to be recognized by this fine group of people who have such strong values and high moral and ethical standards,” Nash said.

Nash was a self-proclaimed news junkie and writer throughout her life, which led to her becoming a police reporter.

As a young adult, she regularly volunteered to write for ministries, organizations, and companies. After becoming involved with law enforcement as a police and breaking news reporter, Nash became friends with many of the officers and volunteered her writing skills to law enforcement based charities and causes.

Nash says writing has helped her get through some of the red tape for many worthwhile endeavors, including helping her friend get an organ transplant.
Since starting MCPR, Nash has used her writing, combined with social media, to assist members of the community in everything from locating lost pets, to locating missing children.

In one case, Nash was able to spread the word and assist several children in raising the money to bury their father, who died unexpectedly.

She has written for multiple local, regional and state publications, including Gulf Coast Police News.

Nash says she was inspired to create Montgomery County Police Reporter in 2008, as a direct result of her personal dissatisfaction with the state of mainstream news.

“I’ve never been politically correct anyway, and I wasn’t willing to compromise the truth and my own ethics,” Nash said. “That can definitely get in the way of a reporter’s career.” 

Nash says she tried all kinds of reporting and quickly realized she was a cops reporter.

“I prefer law enforcement reporting over business or politics because it’s much easier to tell the good guys from the bad guys,” she said.

Some of the “good guys,” attended the ceremony, including Lieutenant Philip Cash, who heads up the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office Special Investigations Unit and who Nash says was an integral part of her career path leading to Montgomery County because he decided to give her a chance the first time she showed up on one of his late night drug busts.

MCPR has become increasingly popular, online and in print. The website has logged over 21,500,000 hits and the MCPR Facebook page has almost 90,000 likes. The weekly print edition is sold at over 100 locations and by subscription.

Worshipful Master Stephen Carlisle is also the Roman Forest Police Chief, which is how he got to know Nash.

“I truly believe that if [Nash] had a choice between a story to make [her] nationally famous or one of us good guys, [she] would choose us,” Carlisle said.