We will dearly miss Mrs. Jackie

From time to time I use this space to veer off the topic of sports, and today is one of those times.

If you turn the page over to 2B, you’ll see a farewell column from longtime Herald-Leader employee Jackie Brooks.

Mrs. Jackie is leaving the newspaper after more than 25 years in a variety of different roles. I’ll let you read her column to see all that she’s done, not only for the Herald-Leader and Siloam Sunday but for other weekly papers in Northwest Arkansas and southwest Missouri.

I first met Mrs. Jackie when I was brought on as sports editor in November of 2009. As she says, there were a lot more people in our building down on Mount Olive (now the Chamber of Commerce) at that time.

Back then, Mrs. Jackie was still involved in the advertising department but sometime after that she transitioned to our editorial team as a copy editor.

For most of the last eight years, she’s been reading nearly every word that is printed in our newspapers. And that includes sports! Mrs. Jackie isn’t the biggest sports fan in the world, but she quickly had to learn and read about a lot of different sports over the years.

I’ve always affectionately referred to Mrs. Jackie as the “den mother” in our office. She had everybody’s birthday on her calendar, and there’s not a birthday that went by for any of us that we didn’t receive a handmade card from her.

She was in charge of planning a lot of the celebrations — birthdays, holiday meals — and for a long time there, she even threw an interoffice football party to celebrate the end of the popular Picks of the Week contest.

Often, and truthfully probably more often than not, a lot of this came out of her own pocket.

From a personal perspective, Mrs. Jackie has been a huge blessing.

I don’t know that I’ve ever had a more dependable employee or one that was willing to do whatever was necessary to help get the job done. She also was a great sounding board for a stressed out editor trying to make good decisions.

And, on more than one occasion, she has blessed my family and me with a lovely homemade cheesecake. Oh, the cheesecake. Those were always such a popular hit with the office parties that I think just about everyone was requesting them when she asked what kind of cake we might want for our birthday.

There is not a greater representative of the Herald-Leader and Siloam Springs than Jackie Brooks.

She informed me a couple of days after Christmas that it was time to retire. I knew the decision would be coming soon, but it didn’t make it any easier.

We will miss her dearly at the newspaper, but we wish her and husband Don nothing but joy and happiness in retirement.