A few brief thoughts as 1st month of ’17 nears end

I wanted to take a few moments to drop a line or two for our readers and let them know about a few things that have immediate effect on their enjoyment of the Standard Journal, or maybe some items they are just curious about.

New deadlines

First and foremost, let me remind folks that we have some new deadlines here at the Standard Journal that caused a shift in the amount of time we have to work on the paper each week, for good and bad.

Good because we spend a lot less time over the weekends focusing on the layout of the paper here in the office, and a lot more time getting to report.

Bad because it means that we have to work around certain interesting aspects, like how we can get late breaking news into each section in a timely manner.

With that in mind, we again remind everyone that if they wish to get an item into the coming week’s edition for coverage of a presentation or a project a community group is doing, or a meeting held, we need that information as soon as possible.

Deadlines to get this information into the paper are no later than Friday morning at 10 a.m. before the next week’s paper comes out.

That also goes for other items such as obituaries, so as to allow as much time as possible for us to finish our own writing for news and sports.

The shift in deadlines also has another interesting side effect: event coverage over the weekends. Though we appreciate that the community gets together in a variety of ways, with new deadlines also means new issues on how we are able to get that coverage into the paper.

So for those who hold events on a Sunday or Monday, we apologize ahead of time that coverage of those get togethers will be pushed back to the following week’s paper. We plan to get as much into each edition as possible when it comes to local events as we have in the past.

We also hope our reading public bears with us while adjustments are continued to be made.

Agnes Hagin

Speaking of events, we had a headline that might have made it sound as if a good friend of ours was in trouble which is not the case.

The American Red Cross held a blood drive in conjunction with the local Masonic Lodge in honor of Agnes Hagin, former senior assistant editor and reporter here at the Standard Journal.

Though Hagin couldn’t attend the blood drive held in her honor, she did stop by the office to let us know last week that all was well with her.

She has been enjoying her long overdue retirement in her beloved Rockmart.

We add our long overdue thanks for her many decades of service to both the paper and the communi- ty for her tireless efforts to cover the news in Rockmart, and wish her well in all her endeavors.

As a personal note, I also miss our wandering conversations about current issues in the office.

Personal note

This column is wandering about a bit as well, but I’ll end it on this note: with every New Year comes great promise and false starts, joyful celebrations and hard losses. This year has been no different, with a variety of topics covered within the first month as boards get back to business, local residents give back to the community and teams triumph or fall short in sports.

Let us remember that this year marks not the beginning of a new era or the end of time as we know it, that though a new administration is sworn in with President Donald Trump that the world hasn’t crumbled to the ground.

The narrative of life continues forward as people we love are born into one part or leave another as they depart through death.

Don’t despair about what the future may bring yet, and don’t let those who choose a path of destruction to vent their frustration be an example of how to display dissent.

These are not the ways to get a valid point across, but instead show a blatant disregard for all people by violent action.

Now let’s see how 2017 unfolds together as we finally all get used to writing down the date for the new year. Even though it doesn’t feel like January with all this warm weather we’ve had.