By Staff
Oct. 28, 2001
As a history buff and an amateur photographer, I will be the first to say, "a picture is worth a thousand words."
And when it comes to old photographs of local history this new edition of "Lauderdale County's Pictorial History" is outstanding. I have seen the first proof of the book this week and it is the best edition yet. It is filled with original photographs, submitted by our readers, that truly tell our story.
The toughest part of assembling one of these books is having to leave some photos out. We received more than a thousand photos and were only able to use about 90. I hope those of you who submitted photos but don't see them in the new book will forgive us.
The publishing house that produces these books all over the country gave us criteria to use and we took their advice most of the time. We tried to select a cross section that would offer a wider variety than previous editions and I think we succeeded. You'll find several never before published photos, some dating back almost 100 years.
We had to order a specific number of books from the publisher as an initial order and we are quickly selling out. If you want one of the books to give as a gift over the holidays you need to reserve it no later than Dec. 1. Orders placed by then will be delivered in the first week or two of December.
A few years ago when an earlier edition was published we had several people who were upset that they didn't have the books in time for holiday gifts. We ran out quickly and the publisher simply couldn't fill the orders for a re-print fast enough. Let us know early and we'll do everything we can to get them to you on time.
Special thanks
Finally, I want to give a special thanks to the folks who called in during the Eddie Smith talk show Friday morning. I fully expected to sit there for three hours and get roasted and that's not at all what happened.
On the contrary, people were complimentary and interested in what we're doing here at the paper. It was very gratifying.
We have a lot of things to be thankful for in this little corner of the world and it was refreshing to hear many folks express those same sentiments. While there are things we'd like to see done in a different way, perhaps, we are all in this thing together and as one caller put it, we're never going to get anything done until we start talking to one another and get the pettiness behind us.
I had over a dozen phone calls during the afternoon Friday, thanking me for being frank and talking about the good things as well as the problem things. Several callers were surprised that I was complimentary of Stan Torgerson both for his reporting prowess as well as his wine column. I was just being sincere. I like Stan's column, and I think he has the best reporter's ear to the ground in town. Period.
We plan to be a guest on the show once a month. Hopefully, we can use the format to help bring people together.
Paul Barrett is publisher of The Meridian Star. Call him at 693-1551, ext. 3202, or e-mail pmbpub@aol.com.