Opinion

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 monkey- sounding cry. A week after, I was hugging my second as she completed our Troutman four. A year later, our nearly 20-pound one-year-old is hitting milestone after milestone, almost too quickly for us to keep up.

For the 76th year since football returned to the Cassville campus, the Black and Gold will be resuming play on the third athletic field for the R-4 schools. There is a new coach at the helm with the history of this squad yet to be written.

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.

With the COVID-19 pandemic coming to the forefront with a number of variants these days, you really don’t understand how it can continue this way until it hits home, and despite all the shots and precautions, you can find yourself dealing with the thing.

The Aug. 2 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.

The 2022-2023 school year will begin on Tuesday, August 23. We are excited to welcome our students and staff back for another great year at Cassville R-IV School District.

Cassville’s main drag from 10th Street going south has taken on various looks over the decades, some for the good and others that have depleted the commercial potential. It’s still an interesting thought to remember those former contributors to our way of life, which was once called “the good life, in our own way” by one metropolitan writer.

I’m writing from a condo on North Beach of Tybee Island in Savannah, Ga., and it’s a small miracle we are here. My family has always driven to vacations.

Before Table Rock Dam was completed in 1958, the area in and around the reservoir got an early look at what water would look like when an impoundment was in place. There are a number of recollections about this happening, none more memorable than a couple of Violaarea men who stepped up to an important job at the time and probably never got adequate recognition for their efforts, which is often the case in civilization.