A wrapper for your 'fridge

By Staff
Jason Cannon
I've been in the newspaper business for all my adult life. This February will mark my ninth year in ink and newsprint.
I began my career as a sports reporter for the Leeds News, a small weekly newspaper in Jefferson County.
I slowly began to work my way up until I arrived in Russellville nearly 15 months ago. In all that time, I couldn't tell you how many articles, columns or photos I've had published. It's probably somewhere in the thousands.
Being on the operator's side of the business, it's often all too easy to forget how much fun it is to see your name in the paper.
Tiffany, myself and some friends of ours have had a competitive barbeque team for a little more than a year.
We'll travel to four or five competitions around the state, shooting for top honors and trophies.
Three times this year, our team has been mentioned the Kansas City Barbecue Society's trade publication, the "Bullsheet."
Each time, we were taken by surprise and we were thrilled. Tiffany set those stories aside and will eventually put them in a scrapbook she's put together of our events and accomplishments.
This past weekend, at yet another competition, our team was photographed and interviewed by two community newspapers that service the community that was hosting the competition.
I have no idea how those stories will turn out, or if they will use the pictures they took, but it was a lot of fun being asked.
Journalists have coined the term "refrigerator journalism." Basically, it's anything a newspaper can produce that some family will cut out and hang on their 'fridge for the world to see.
There is no greater honor to a writer than to find out someone has saved something you've written or done.
There is no award as important as knowing one of your stories, one of your photos or one of your bylines has found its way into a family's scrapbook.
The Franklin County Times has been providing scrapbook material for more than 125 years and I'm proud to be a part of that tradition.