I am honored and grateful to be speaking at The Bill Minor Prize forum at Millsaps College next Friday.
I hope to represent The Yazoo Herald and the community I live and work in well during the public symposium. But I will admit, public speaking makes me extremely nervous.
However, I plan to focus my attention on the community and the many wonderful gifts it has given me in return since my arrival here in 2006.
Since I was a child, I knew I wanted to be in the newspaper business.
Maybe it was the classic movies I watched that transported me into the hectic yet exciting world of journalism.
Perhaps it was the vintage typewriter I found in my grandparent’s closet, which gave me hours of practice with each bang of its metal keys.
Or it could have been the notebook I kept folded in my back pocket during my high school years, constantly jotting down a quick poem or interesting quote I heard someone say in passing.
Whatever the bug was, it bit me and surely left a mark.
Journalism has allowed me to not only find a job and career, but it has also given me a way to give back to my community and myself. Seeing my name in print the first few years upon entering the business made me feel as if I was leaving a mark on the world. And with every dirty palm filled with newspaper ink, it was hard to completely wipe it off.
The newspaper world has, of course, provided me with a living. But it has also allowed me the opportunity to share some pretty remarkable stories. It’s not every job where you leave the police station after following a case to head to a veteran’s house to hear about his service. It’s a job that changes every day, and it opens up a variety of worlds and lives you might have otherwise never known about.
And I will be forever humbly grateful for the reception I have received in Yazoo County. Leaving my hometown of Natchez, I felt like an outsider, venturing to a new place. But over the course of the last decade, Yazooans have welcomed me into their lives, homes and hearts. And now it feels like home. It is home.
Yazoo is a unique place that I attempt to portray in this very newspaper to the best of my ability. It is a place where neighbors help each other out without having to be asked. It is a place where children still sell lemonade. It is a place where people stop and talk to you on the street. It is a place where merchants not only provide you with a product but a good conversation and laugh as well.
It is a place of good people, and I am honored to be included.
Who knows what the future will hold? I can’t tell you what will happen in the newspaper industry. There have been many ups and downs in this business, but we have been blessed with strong community support.
But I do know that I will I be along for the journey. As I raise my family, as I earn a living and as I try to give back as much as I can…Yazoo is stuck with me. And there is no place I would rather be.
Wish me well Yazoo as I represent this newspaper and this awesome community next Friday.
But it really shouldn’t be all that hard to do. Yazoo speaks for itself.
