This gig started with the usually mundane, but important, reporting of school board meetings. City council meetings followed.
It was quite an education. Having spent most of my working career in the military, just how things got done at public schools or in small towns was a mystery.
The experience rewarded with exposure to a combination of common-sense, patience and selflessness that was evident in board rooms across the county.
There was one commonality in all these meetings – folks were trying to do the right thing.
That is a noble objective, as sometimes the bureaucracy created by law and the conventions of the past don’t always make doing the right thing easy or necessarily clear.
However, the concept of small government works. It does simply because doing the right thing normally prevails.
In time, Mineola football coverage followed, which soon expanded to include Alba-Golden and Quitman, and eventually settled on Alba-Golden and Mineola sports (as Quitman was ably covered by Quitman’s own, Larry Tucker).
Covering these scholastic athletic programs was a gift. Seeing, first hand, the investment the schools make in their student-athletes was reassuring. The payback was the enduring examples of hard work, dedication, selflessness and maturity of the athletes.
Each game provided a takeaway that heartened one’s faith in our young generation. It also communicated that all the time, energy and resources invested in the student-athletes was well spent.
With the onset of covid and the truncating of so many civic events, it became necessary to go out and search for stories.
There were only four ideas on the initial story list. That list grew and grew. After six years of weekly features there are still at least a dozen stories remaining on the list. But, it’s time to move on. Those ideas will be left to the capable hands of James Taylor and the Monitor.
To all those who shared their stories – thank you. One never knows the effect of sharing life’s stories. There certainly is an impact which should never be underestimated.
So, we’ll wrap this up with a few of this reporter’s favorite images from six years in a small town.
Watermelon. At Lepha Luttrall’s kitchen table, Luttrall described how she used to eat watermelon with her grandfather on the back porch when she was a young girl. The detailed description of that experience was offered with such clarity and emotion that it was a truly reverent moment.
Two friends. Charles Cain and Billy Parr had, for twenty consecutive years, driven together to Omaha, Neb. every summer to watch part of the college baseball world series. Many adventures were shared among the two friends along the way. After Cain’s passing, his baseball buddy, Billy Parr, remarked, “If I could be remembered as half the man that Charles was, that would be something.”
Dominoes. On the regular trip to the Golden Post Office, the sight of the Golden Grocery is always reassuring, because in the back room there might just be a group of old-timers playing dominoes.
Brotherhood. Former Marine Charles Louderman paused at the end of a long interview discussing his service in Vietnam. During an emotional recounting of the men who were under his charge, he offered, “I wish I had been with Massey when he was killed. We both would have been dead, but still.”
Comfort. While accompanying Abby McMillin and a team of companion dogs and their handlers on a visit to Caraday Nursing Home, the dogs had almost competed their rounds through the facility. Residents greeted the animals like old friends. During one such interaction with an elderly woman, a staff member whispered that the only time the woman spoke was when the dogs came to visit.
Joy. In the small chapel of Mt. Calvary Church of God in Christ, Barbara Berry – the woman with the singing telephone message – was talking about the power of music. Near the end of the interview, she began rocking back and forth, and (without prompting) began to sing a beautiful rendition of the hymn Eye on the Sparrow. The song flew from her heart.
The above moments illustrate the most rewarding part of this writing stint, having had the privilege to learn of others – their sacrifices, their kindnesses, their joys, talents and struggles. It is what makes us human.