Newspaper life, as I wrote last week can be a challenging one, just like any career choice for any of us, every career comes with its challenges, its ups and its downs. So as I prepare to take on 2025 I reflect on the career here in Clay County, but overall, my newspaper career.
Newspapers have been a huge part of my life. I grew up starting as an infant in my parent’s newspaper in Shelton, I saw the changes (that I remember anyhow) that they went through over their long careers of working together. I too have seen many changes in this business in my long career, a choice that I made to get into long before I even graduated from high school.
With change comes the willingness and need to just “go with the flow,” because no single day will ever be the same, just as it is in any business. I guess that’s what happens in life, change happens, and either you embrace it, or you struggle to keep up.
I was extremely happy to see that my colleagues that own the Valentine and Ainsworth newspapers were able to find interested parties to purchase each newspaper, instead of having to close each paper, which in my eyes, would have been like a community losing their school to consolidation.
Rod and Kathy Worrell, the couple that owns the Valentine and Ainsworth papers are of the “old world mold” of newspapering, just like me, even if I’m not as seasoned as they have been. The Worrells, when they announced the pending sale of the Ainsworth paper noted that they had been going strong for 40-plus years, and that honestly, is so hard, to do the same thing, year in, and year out. See the same working space, outside of a few remodeling changes now and then, but it is hard. I’m happy as punch that those two papers have been “saved” so to speak.
Since I walked in the front door at the Clay County News on Monday, June 1, 2009, some 5,700 days ago, according to a timeline calculator that I used to look up my timeline in Clay County.
That’s 15 years, seven months, and one day from the dateline of this week’s newspaper...or another way to look at it is that I’ve been in this paper for 187 months and one day.
Before coming to the CCN, the longest-term job that I had lasted seven years and some change.
I was away from the business for several years, but never far enough away to forget what doing what I do for a living matters.
We don’t always get everything covered, we miss some events, and with the invention of social media, everyone who does what I do for a living scratches their heads to think about how our lives in this business has changed. For the most part, gone from our papers, nationwide are lifetime milestones, such as engagement announcements, wedding announcements, birth announcements, and many other things.
Over my 5,694 official days of being with CCN, I’ve had the luxury of witnessing state championships, upset wins, record the history of rivalries, not just between Sutton and Sandy Creek, but our county schools with other schools outside of Clay County.
I’ve witnessed some hard things as well. The passing of friends that I have gotten to know, thanks in part to what I do for a living.
Newspapering isn’t for just anyone, as I’m sure that the Worrells would agree with. You get your butt chewed on now and then because someone or a group of people didn’t agree with something I wrote, or how I covered something. That’s the way it is in any business, people are much quicker to criticize your work than they are to praise the work you do.
So it is my hope that as 2025 gets started with this week’s paper, that our readers, and our communities that we serve will take a little more time to share their news, even if one of us can’t make it to an event. I hope that as we try to be involved that you as readers, or even non-readers will become a little more active in sharing “your news,” with us.
Re-engage with us and share those milestones in life, like an engagement, a wedding, a birth, or a birthday announcement. Help make YOUR newspaper stronger, better, and more enjoyable to read each week. Happy New Year!
