As they often do, things are about to change around here. This is my final column as editor and publisher of the News-Journal before I embark on my new career.
I will look back fondly on my time in Mitchell County, which to date, is the best four years of my professional life. My wife, Rhonda, and I fell in love with this community and, with the exception of a few people, it loved us back.
When I arrived in Mitchell County four years ago, many of my new fellow citizens predicted I’d hate it. They greeted my introductory column with warnings about crime, taxes, winter, potholes, political corruption, economic stagnation, falling property values – just about everything except a meteor strike.
As it turned out, my life was crime free, my overcoat was adequate, and most of the people I met are wonderful, as is our county and our readers.
Over the past several years, our subscribers have seen a lot of change, but one thing remained the same: the increasingly close collaboration between our newsroom and our community.
I feel as if people deserve a relevant newspaper, and that we had much to learn from our readers. I began asking for your insights as we drafted coverage plans and for your help as we reporting on specific stories. Typically, dozens of you responded. Sometimes it was thousands.
I hope you’ve seen how much richer your responses made our stories. I know I could see the difference.
I’m going to miss Mitchell County and its people – even the cranky ones. Working with people this dedicated to community service – to finding and telling the truth – builds powerful feelings not just of loyalty, but of love. I hope you felt the love, too, when you saw my work in the pages of the News-Journal.
I’m taking all my Mitchell purple with me and will wear it proudly. Since I won’t have time to say goodbye to everyone, just know I love this paper, this county and its people, and I hope it showed each week in the News-Journal.