Once, not so long ago, I was a familiar sight on these streets, perennially on the beat, looking for the stories that make this place unique.
Then the news bug bit and a bigger market called, a place that wanted personality added to its paper, that wanted change. Except it didn’t really want change and soon they didn’t like me and I didn’t like them.
Since then, I have tried my hand – and done well – at some very interesting jobs, off the mainstream career track. I thought about just retiring because my last experience soured me on the newspaper industry. I was burned out and sick of the direction news was going.
But I kept up with some places, to see how my friends were doing and who was going where. One day I noticed the ad for my old slot. I have said frequently that this was the only newspaper I would come back to and a way opened for that to happen.
Why would anyone want to come back to Watonga, to Blaine County?
Because this place is predominantly populated with people who want to improve things. They are willing to accept the burden of school board or county commission or law enforcement not because they want notoriety or power. People here are in large part motivated by the same urges that drove the founding fathers of our nation. Those who have the ability, education and the blessing of common sense feel obligated to public service.
Here it isn’t just elected public servants who work to make things better. They are city employees, business owners, pharmacists, medical staff, clergy and community builders. They work at banks and insurance companies. They are oil and gas company leaders and laborers. Their children are in school next to your children and everyone is invested in our success. Everybody roots for everybody else. They aren’t just out for what they can get to make their own bed softer. This community understands that when the least of us do well, all of us do well.
And people here are kind. They are nice. In just one day, I have had countless people tell me how glad they are to see me back, ask where I’m staying, ask about my family.
I guess at the end of the day, maybe I am cut from the same bolt of cloth. Maybe somewhere in my ink-stained soul, I want to make things better, too. If someone does wrong, I’m still going to call them on it, but doing right will get noticed as well.
I’m taking up the flag passed from editor to editor since T.B. Ferguson founded the paper. I’m happy and proud to be back. There is no place I would rather be.