FROM THE EDITOR
I want to thank you for reading this content that is part of 2023’s first Osceola News-Gazette edition.
2022 flew by and blew through – like a hurricane. (Yeah, I get it, still not funny.) And, here we are, rummaging around to find a new wall calendar.
I’ve long thought we mark time in odd ways. Sunday’s midnight was apparently much more important than Saturday’s or Monday’s – all you had to do was listen to the sky.
The last week of December is always a fair time to look back on the past year, which we did last issue. As I put that together, I added it up, and if you vacuum up Ian’s floodwaters, the successes about outweighed the tragedies.
Those were the stories we were able to report and provide, the ones that thousands of you read each week. Our analytics showed that you read enough in 2022 to generate more page hits at AroundOsceola. com than in any other year ever – including the “daily COVID update” year of 2020. In September, with your help, we reached the plateau of 100,000 hits in a month for the first time.
We cover and publish the stories we feel best benefit the wide cross-section of our readership. There’s important stuff in those headlines, proving to us that some things are important to you when you leave the house.
And other things are even more important when you walk back in the door.
You have rent payments and mortgages; car loans; utility bills; student loans maybe. The kids have “school stuff” and “sports stuff”. Nearly all the decisions made locally affect all of that. It’s our duty to make sure you know about it.
I also know there are stories in our community we don’t get to tell. There are the warrior moms – like my wife Carrie, who I don’t know whether to call a saint or a martyr for working her job and keeping our house and kids from spinning out of control, all while having to put up with my crusty butt that isn’t home until late some nights. I have another good friend who does all that, while advocating for everyone else’s children, making sure they get all the help they should get in our schools. Then there are the dads I know who are working two jobs to keep it all afloat.
You all deserve a headline for running a race with no finish line. You’re the real front-page news, and I wish you a 2023 that has you smiling, and success outweighs tragedy—I mean, failure (that sounds “less bad”) — when we do this again in 12 months.
So, as you write your 2023 headlines:
May your faith be bigger than your fears.
May you find a conscience in someone you can talk to.
May you accept the good things for what they are, recognize the bad things as a need for change, and feel the wisdom to know the difference.
May you feel the power of persistence – the courage to continue doing something, even though it is difficult or challenging.
And, while you’re at it, can you find me a new calendar?
