Opinion & Editorial

From the Desk of Phil Hudgins: Every career, even newspaper business, has its risks

Someone asked me the other day if I always wanted to be a journalist. I told him no, I thought I wanted to be an artist. You see, I took this art-by-mail course when I was a kid. But after six months of drawing and painting, I realized I had no talent. I quit the course.

Love Thy Neighbor: How to survive the holidays

It’s been a particularly brutal and polarizing 18 months in America. We’ve survived one of the nastiest presidential elections since Andrew Jackson’s in 1828 — and they didn’t have incessant TV ads assaulting them. There are 258 million adults in America. About 29 percent voted for Donald Trump.

YOUR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

A shout-out to reporter Eric Tiongson To the Editor: I just felt compelled to drop a shout-out to reporter Eric Tiongson for the truly first-class job he did on the article about Ron Webb and his selfless commitment and dedication to White County and the community of Cleveland that appeared in...

Paul’s Perspective: Thank you veterans

Today, in church, we celebrated as, I suspect, did many churches in White County, Veterans Day and acknowledged the debt of service and sacrifice our vets have made over our nation’s history and continue to make.

Paul’s Perspective: Ode to autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom friend of the maturing sun;   So begins Keats’s epic poem “Ode To Autumn.” I’m always reminded of these lines as we transition into this special time of year.

From the Desk of Phil Hudgins: Confession good for the soul, even for editors

Newspaper reporters and editors are just ordinary people who want to get it right. In a recent column about Mordecai Wilson, a 99-year-old resident of tiny Lula, I reported that he and his wife, Mary, set up two special homes when they lived in Boston.

Ray’s Reflections: Finding strength in the storm

In September 2016, I saw firsthand how Wayne County could come together. With Hurricane Matthew barreling down the East Coast we made the split-second decision to evacuate and head for Macon to wait out the storm.

YOUR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Just the facts   To the Editor: Our second president, Samuel Adams is reputed to have said something to the effect “facts are stubborn things.”  This stubbornness, he must have thought, would make them triumphant over falsehoods.

From the Desk of Phil Hudgins: A newspaper worth its salt prints stories without favors

Remember The Waltons on TV? It was a long-running yarn following the lives of a struggling, Depression-era, God-loving family in the mountains of Virginia. It might have been a bit too syrupy for some, but we thought it was a nice break from some of the crime shows of the 1970s.

Love Thy Neighbor: How do you protect yourself against harm?

We like to think our lives are novel and that no one has ever experienced what we do now. However, the truth is that only technology and tools change. People react and behave similarly, repeating the same social patterns throughout time.