Opinion

Last weekend, I made the trek to Osage Beach for the annual Missouri Press Association Convention, stomach in knots with every turn that I would leave emptyhanded. In a sense, I did, as this was the first year in the last eight — my entire eligible career in Missouri — that neither the Monett Times nor Cassville Democrat won a Gold Cup.

When I was a freshman in college, I bought myself a new cell phone. I had it all planned out.

Fall is on its way, and I don’t know about you all, but there’s one thing I enjoy a bit about Autumn more than anything else — the food. My wife and I kicked off the season Wednesday by pressure cooking the most marbled chuck eye roast you’d ever laid eyes on.

It’s rare for a Barry County school to make national and international headlines, but for the last two weeks, Cassville has made the rounds. From the Springfield paper to CNN and KY3 to the Guardian in the United Kingdom, the coverage of the district’s re-instatement of its corporal punishment policy was just as disappointing as the policy change itself.

When I arrived at the Cassville Democrat and met Office Manager Darlene Wierman for the first time, I’m not sure either of us knew what to do with one another. Darlene was a living history of the Democrat, having worked at the paper since 1970, and I was still a greenhorn of a journalist, accepting the first editor job of my career.

I officially have more than 365 days of fatherhood under my belt. Maybe it’s because sleep has been at a premium at times, but it sure doesn’t feel that long ago I was holding my 6-pound, 11-ounce newborn and fawning over her monkeysounding cry. A week after, I was hugging my second as she completed our Troutman four.

I have a pretty steadfast rule against putting our staff or our staff’s families in the paper, extending as far as no pictures of family pets. However, even the most constant rule may be bent from time to time if the situation warrants.

Tuesday’s election showed us two things in Barry County, the power of hoofing it through rural parts of the Ozarks, and the power behind a rural precinct ballot. Steve Blankenship, of Jenkins, won the Barry County presiding commissioner race over Chad Johnson and Andrew W.

A number of Verona community members took issue with an alderman’s comments as reported in the July 1 edition of The Monett Times. In that article, which dealt mainly with the city’s efforts to implement an e-citation system to protect officers by streamlining the citation process, I also covered the council’s decision on the dates and times fireworks would be permitted in the city during the Independence Day celebration.

Dear Editor: This letter is regarding the July 1 Monett Times article and regarding comments made during the June council meeting by an alderman about citations. The city, by no means, operates our police department to make revenue for the city.