By: Forrest R. Church, Publisher
THE VILLAGE REPORTER
To prepare for our annual New Year’s Edition, we scroll through every newspaper we publish throughout the year to reflect and try to summarize major stories with our readers. Sometimes, it is hard to believe how fast time flies past. A news story I would swear was last week was actually in March as an example. “Time slows down for no one,” the phrase goes. This process takes FOREVER, but it is one of the more enjoyable features we knock out each year, we hope you enjoy it (see within this week’s edition).
I decided to do the same type of review personally/professionally, sharing experiences and thoughts here. I jot random notes and observations down throughout the year for column consideration. I only write about a few of them in this column, frankly because I often have no free time left (making press deadlines with no time to spare). I reviewed those random notes this past week and then scrolled through my social media posts for the year.
Below are some reflections that do not flow the best and bounce back and forth from professional to personal, but they give an overview of 2024 in my world.
WHAT A YEAR 2024 WAS … GOOD, BAD, OR OTHERWISE
– Personally, I think the kids keep growing too fast. Our middle child hit double digits, and our oldest is already halfway through his senior year. If anybody has a recipe to make time slow down please let me know, I’ll buy you lunch.
– This year was a mixed bag on the health front, something I struggled with in recent years. Overall, 2024 found my health going in the right direction. I am often asked about this when out in the community. I had a partially dislocated hip, which threw out my back recently, but overall health is better than in past. I still struggle with exhaustion from long days and not being able to eat carbohydrates, sugar, or flour products which causes low energy. Yet I know endless amounts of people in my circle are facing worse, and it gives me the excuse to drink a lot of coffee as a remedy (do not mess with my coffee).
– Election – let’s agree we are glad it is over, no matter how you voted. I feared some pretty dreadful things would take place this year, some of what I predicted actually happened, including the assassination (attempts). I’m optimistic about the new season we are going into, but frankly, I’m glad the election year is over; it brings hate and evil to a level we can all agree is concerning.
– Kids growing and enjoying school in the North Central School District (Pioneer, Ohio). I have never been one to compare one district to another. My observation is we are blessed to send our children to any school district in the greater Williams County – Fulton County area of Northwest Ohio. But I will say I am appreciative of the faculty’s efforts with our youngsters locally. I am also appreciative of their youth sports program coaches. I’ve been asked to coach numerous times but finding a few hours a week of free time is near impossible. It breaks my heart as I’d love to coach and even possibly return to chaplaincy as I did previously for high school football programs in both Ohio and Florida. But it is a different season of life for me right now, so I’m appreciative of those who can give of their precious time to feed into both our kids and the children of the community.
– Blessed to live in an area of the country where the community cares for one another. We often fight and disagree, but if needed, have each other’s backs. If I am transparent, I hate having to publish stories where a city and church are at each other’s throats legally, where officers are busted for making poor choices, corruption in local government, etc. I would much rather put our publishing energy into positive local community news, which is more readily true and available than sad stories that many in the media only desire to focus on. We cannot nor will not avoid tragic news, but unlike other media outlets we will not go out of our way to purposely dig for it.
– The fridge died, and we lost much of our groceries. Yes, might seem like a small thing. It was not needed and came in a bad week around the holidays.
– Was able to see John Crist Christian comedy show in Toledo on a rare date night with my bride for her Christmas gift earlier this month. It is the small things like being able to find an evening away from work.
– Continue to work with great people at the newspaper who care about bringing forth community news. This line of work has next to no profit margin, and the pay is not the most competitive. Many in our circle are involved at the newspaper for a bigger purpose. I hope the community appreciates the time, energy, and effort our team puts into our community news. If you look around, there are a lot of communities around America that no longer have this type of news source, and we have continued with roots dating back locally to the 1870s.
– Was able to enjoy one of a few successful Indiana Football seasons in the school’s frankly sad history. There have been stretches where the ole Hoosiers won 3-5 games in two seasons in total, so making the college playoffs was a real experience this year. Fans of successful programs like Ohio State and Michigan expect and are used to success. When you barely ever found success as an IU fan over four+ decades, a winning season is magical. Out of all the schools I used to cover with sideline photography, I’ve covered IU the most, including a bowl game in Florida. I am a Big Ten guy who pulls for all teams and am happy when fans of whichever school enjoy success.
– Faithfulness from subscribers/readers. In my last column, I wrote about senior citizens living off social security having to cut their subscriptions despite being part of our community news family for an extraordinarily long time due to inflation increases. Since wanting to remain anonymous, I will not touch on this heavily, but there were gifts given by readers. That means a lot, there is still hope in humanity. If you would like to gift a subscription(s) to those in a tighter financial spot please email me directly: publisher@thevillagereporter.com.
– Our first high school senior. I cannot believe our firstborn is already halfway through his senior year. I’ve watched him take small steps toward manhood and cannot wait to see where life takes him. I think I enjoyed taking his senior photos in the Fall more than he did.
– Watching the sky for astrological beauty. From meteor showers to massive moon rising to the east, to a comet, to the northern lights – the mystery of our universe looking up from the surface of this rock was amazing in 2024.
– Possibly the biggest difficulty in 2024 was/is inflation and being caught in the middle of a trade war that has skyrocketed paper and plate prices. Add in six postage increases in two years, and what little profits we had were erased. When we have bigger editions, it costs more than the $2.00 we charge to print and mail a paper (offset by advertisement sales that are not always dependable). I have talked about this before in my column, and since we are trying to be “festive” in this New Year’s edition, I’m not going to go into further detail. But I do think about this issue before the first cup of coffee brews until I wake up in the middle of the night with the topic still “in thought.” It is a problem for many small businesses and most American families.
– Little blessings that we take for granted. Coffee to put in the morning brewing pot. A warm shower. While putting up Christmas lights with the kids recently, I had the mindset develop what a blessing it is to have a roof over our heads when Americans in the greater North Carolina area have lost everything this year in the hurricane (horrific government response – different subject for a different column). The best way to get past frustrations in life is to slow down the anger and look around. When we find ourselves in the midst of a storm, we are almost always still drowning in blessings as Americans if we open our eyes.
– Able to meet with my colleagues at the National Newspaper Association (NNA) in Omaha, Nebraska, where we were blessed with numerous awards. I was also able to meet in late spring with other Ohio newspaper publishers at the Ohio News Media Association, where we also received awards for our staff’s hard work. Our line of work is difficult; most have no clue what it takes to be a “small-town” community publisher. Being able to brush shoulders with those who have an idea and brainstorming with them is refreshing.
– With inflation killing the grocery budget, being able to put in two gardens. For the first time in my adult life, I did this for a purpose beyond a teaching moment for our kids. We had an amazing harvest and saved money along the way. I love watching the kids work in the garden vs. sitting around playing video games. Yes, I am that grumpy old-school dad. Get over it and while at it “get off my lawn” … (LOL – some will understand this comment)
– Creating not one but two historic keepsake tribute books was a challenge like no other in 2024. We have published historic tributes before, but not to this level, quality, or depth. Having two back-to-back (Williams County 200th & Village Of Pioneer 175th) was rewarding and challenging. We hope the communities enjoyed them. It was likely we put a year’s worth of hours into those two products. There were a lot of 12 hour days or normal newspaper operations followed by 6-8 hours put into planning, organizing, selling sponsorships, and building these tributes.
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That is it on reflections, there were more but some say I am long-winded so I will stop here.
On an administrative note, and I’m sure many will forget by the first week of January (here come the calls and emails), every four years there are 53 Wednesdays. We publish 52 editions per year (subscribers are charged for 52 editions), so please note our next edition will be on January 8th, 2025 (not January 1, 2025).
As always, news will be placed online at www.thevillagereporter.com as a daily newspaper format (no need to wait for snail mail to deliver the physical newspaper). All stories, sports scores, and obituaries will be placed online during this time frame “as normal.” Our staff, who often work triple-digit work weeks, will spend this time resting up mentally and physically while we do some “backend” things to prepare for a great year of community news and sports coverage.
Happy New Year!