Time to move ahead, don’t look back, except maybe a little

Elsewhere in this edition you will find the details about this newspaper’s sale to new owners. Don’t get all mushy about it; there’s much room for improvement and we believe that the new owners will be able to expand the newspaper’s reach through all media during this time of ever-evolving technology and communications.
Here they will find a capable staff ready to expand communications horizons to more effectively tell Panola’s story. Shared ownership with the Oxford Eagle will help fuel the growing synergy between the two towns — the very synergy that leaders in Batesville, Oxford and our two counties have been seeking.
In announcing this sale to our employees Wednesday, we said it was “bittersweet.” Sweet in that we feel like the newspaper’s ownership will transition into hands capable of maintaining the newspaper’s communications and financial viability. Bitter in that — so many more stories we’d like to have told, so many more friends we’d like to have met, so many more times we’d have celebrated milestones in the lives of our employees, our community, so many more…, so many more.
Yet time moves on and with it comes change. And age. My brother and I have found it increasingly more difficult in coping with both. We tried early to embrace the communications revolution that has exponentially increased the pace of everything and especially the news cycle, but we never really got used to it. Long gone is the schedule that kept us up and going for most of three days to produce the weekly edition, then allowed a couple of slack days to follow that permitted reflection and recuperation.
Among the parts of this job I’ve enjoyed most during these latter years is the parade of young people I’ve met as they have received recognition in school for their accomplishments. My appreciation for them is only enhanced by memory of my own slothful adolescence, but often I have been simply amazed at how much they have been able to pack into their short lives. That leads me to wish that there would be opportunity for them to remain in Panola County if they choose — that our best and brightest would not have to leave home because there is insufficient opportunity here to utilize the wealth of education and knowledge they absorb.
I often think about the people who have worked for us in the newspaper, especially those who have worked part-time on the night mail crew. Most but not all were young — high school age or thereabouts. I remember worrying on school nights about how late we’d keep these boys at work when they had to go to school the next morning, but they kept coming back. Often nowadays they stop me in the grocery store or along the street. We laugh, reminisce and catch up on others who worked here during the same era.
But enough with nostalgia. We appreciate our employees who have proven themselves so talented and our readers who encourage us with their interest.
We appreciate and encourage those who write us letters whether you agree, disagree or just want to inform. We appreciate that you take the time to distill your thoughts into words, sentences and paragraphs to share with other readers.
And we certainly appreciate our advertisers without whom none of this could happen. Your choice to advertise in the newspaper and its other media products has never been more important. Gathering and disseminating local news is an expensive proposition. Participating in its dissemination becomes a symbiotic relationship between the business, the newspaper and the community — when the advertiser places the ad in the newspaper, the advertiser not only receives a return in the form of response from customers, the advertisers joins the newspaper to become a partner in the life of the community. We urge you to join and continue this partnership.
Now as these lines are written and has too often become the case, Friday’s edition is waiting on me to finish these lines, so we will close. And finish later.