Throwing yourself into your work
By By Melissa Cason
Over the past year, I have not been shy about acknowledging how much I love reporting the news to Franklin County – both hard news and feature news.
I love a good hard news story, like the one about the meth lab being found in Vina this week, but I especially love writing the news features, which are the bread and butter of our business.
We are a community newspaper and I strive to bring you fun and interesting stories about your families, friends and neighbors. But, we also feel that it is our duty to tell you about things going on in the community, including trials and tragedies.
As a community newspaper, we specialize in refrigerator news, which is anything the reader cuts out and puts on their refrigerator because the item was important to them.
That is the biggest compliment our readers can give us.
With all that said, I have to get to my point. A few weeks ago, during Homecoming week, I visited a home in Franklin County to write a story.
When I went into the kitchen to talk about the story at hand, I happened to see a photo I had taken on the refrigerator. It was a simple photo with a cut-line but I knew that the simple photo must have meant much more to the person who took the time to cut it out and post in on the refrigerator.
I couldn't help but smile. A feeling of pride swept across me but all I did is smile and kept going with my interview.
Seeing that one picture on that refrigerator was the biggest compliment and I thought how lucky I was to see it.
I hope many more of you have cut of stories and photos that you've seen in this newspaper and if you have, we are very greatful.
I am thankful to be able to touch lives, if even in the smallest of ways. I am thankful that you have invited me into your lives by reading this column every week, and by reading the offerings that are printed in this paper.
And, most of all, I am thankful for you – the reader, – because without you my work would have no meaning.
Without someone to read the stories, they would only be words on paper.
