By Mike McCombs
The Island News
The Island News has added another veteran reporter to its staff. This one has worked for The Island News previously.
Tony Kukulich, most recently of the Post & Courier, will cover Beaufort County, with much of his focus, though not necessarily all, on the area south of the Broad River.
“We are excited to add another veteran local reporter to our team,” said Jake Higgins, owner of Higgins Media Group, LLC, which owns The Island News. “Tony Kukulich is a professional journalist with years of experience who understands our community and has always reported fairly and accurately. He brings a wealth of knowledge and established relationships to our team and we are honored to work and learn from him. Welcome aboard Tony and thank you for continuing to invest into our community while ensuring trust and facts always come first.”
Originally from Wilmington, Del., Kukulich studied English at the University of Delaware before spending 30 years working in consumer finance.
In 2015, Kukulich and his wife, Jennifer, moved to California where he began working part-time as a photojournalist for a weekly newspaper, The Brentwood Press, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Eventually hired full-time in 2018, Kukulich covered a broad range of assignments, including breaking news, local government, public safety, environmental issues and a lot of wildfires. His work earned him a number of awards from both the California Newspaper Publishers Association and the National Newspaper Association.
Kukulich and his wife moved to Bluffton in 2021, where he handled freelance reporting and photo assignments for The Island Packet, the Bluffton Sun and Hilton Head Monthly, as well as continuing to write for two California newspapers. He was hired, the first time, by The Island News in late 2021 before joining the Post & Courier in October 2022.
Kukulich enjoys hiking, biking, and kayaking, and plays bass in a jazz band called Domino Theory that performs regularly in the area.
“I’m excited to be back at The Island News and looking forward to helping the paper expand its reach in the southern Lowcountry,” Kukulich said. “Locally focused newspapers staffed by professional journalists provide an invaluable service to the communities they serve, and I’m proud to be a small part of that tradition.”
Mike McCombs is the editor of The Island News and can be reached at TheIslandNews@gmail.com.