The past two weeks have been a whirlwind mixed with a lot of different emotions, but mainly excitement for a new opportunity. After weeks filled with gestures of appreciation, admiration, and love for my predecessor John P. Brown, I came to the realization that change is happening, and it is happening fast. I blinked and it’s a new year with a new title, and new responibilites that I don’t take lightly.
Since Pat made his retirement announcement on December 15, I knew this day was coming. Reality set in last Thursday evening around 6 p.m. as we all worked to clean up after a successful retirement ceremony. Putting away the last table and chairs, I smiled when I turned around and saw all hands on deck working to get things cleaned up. The camaraderie and chemistry in the room was on full display among my coworkers, and it made me confident in our success as we embark on this new journey.
The staff of the Magee Courier/Simpson County News and their families are what keeps this place running, but the community is what makes a local newspaper successful. Pat mentioned this during his final speech as publisher.
He said the newspaper belongs to the community, and I have known this to be true since my first day on the job. We are only as good as the stories you allow us to tell. We can only afford to tell those stories thanks to the advertisements and support from our local businesses. This concept has led to the success of our local paper for over a century, and for that we are forever grateful.
Our goal this year is to become even more valuable to the community. The newspaper competes with social media and other outlets for your time and attention. We are on a mission to win a bigger portion of both. Social media is a part of daily life and allows you to connect with your friends and family almost instantly.
After you click “post” on whatever social media platform, we want your next click to be an email and some information to us so we can share your story with your neighbors. Whether it’s a first homerun, birth announcement, wedding announcement, winning a little league world series, helping a neighbor, or issues in the community we want to know.
We will continue to do an outstanding job keeping you up to date on local government and organizations. Those stories are important, but the personal touch of opening your local paper and reading about someone you just saw at the grocery store is what makes the newspaper special.
We plan to bring back some old favorites and introduce some new ideas to further connect with the community. Sidewalk and online surveys about important issues affecting us will be added, and we want to hear from you. We want to honor a different hometown hero once a month, which includes our local law enforcement, firefighters, and medical personnel. We want to further celebrate the academic, artistic, and athletic accomplishments of local students, and let them know that their community is rooting for them.
The community is what makes a newspaper great and we are happy to take this next step with all of you.
Simpson County is full of talented and interesting people with amazing stories waiting to be told. With your support we plan to tell them all one week at a time.
