Column
Jon Horner: Giving thanks for gratitude
I’ve always loved Thanksgiving Day — it is one of those traditions that has meant a lot to me and my family throughout my 61 years on this planet. One of the reasons for my warm feelings for this day are the fond memories from Thanksgivings in the past.
Janet Mills: Over the river and through the woods
Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house they come! Hurrah for the fun! Is the pudding done? Hurrah for the pumpkin pie! Spring over the ground like a hunting hound, for here comes Thanksgiving Day! We know that all grandmas just like me are thrilled when it is their turn in the rotation for sons and daughters to journey all the way from the big city and come home to partake of the country life for Thanksgiving. It is grandma’s job to set the stage, dust off the furniture, plan the meals, fluff the pillows, and prepare activities to enhance the joys of country life for her urban visitors.
Kyle Troutman: County voters tow the line
Another election is in the books, and in Barry County, it came with few surprises. As many may have predicted, the county remained unabashedly red.
Kyle Troutman: Feeling frisson
On March 1, 2010, at 3:22 p.m., I used my iPhone to record a song that to this day brings an intense frisson. Following a volunteer’s playing of “Amazing Grace” on bagpipes — in a light drizzle and with a backdrop of at least a dozen U.S.
Michelle Hilburn: What makes a library meaningful?
In Starfish by Lisa Fipps, one of my favorite young adult novels, Ellie, the main character, captures how meaningful a librarian’s presence can be: “[The librarian is] the first person to smile at me today./ The first to make me feel wanted./ Understood./I blink back tears./ It’s unknown how many students’ lives/librarians have saved/by welcoming loners at lunch.”
Dakoda Pettigrew: Ask Not
A bitter snowstorm dropped six inches of snow on America’s capital city the day before Inauguration Day. “Many of the pre-inaugural social affairs had to be canceled,” The New York Times wrote on Friday, January 20, 1961, adding that the snowfall had “snarled traffic, disrupted air and highway travel and chilled thousands of visiting Democrats.”
Kyle Troutman: The ball is in your court on Nov. 5
On Tuesday, I will cast my fifth-ever vote for a president in these great United States. To be quite frank, I’ll be glad to begrudgingly mark that oval and move on.
Dakoda Pettigrew: Democracy’s heart, the heart of Lincoln
“It is for us the living,” Abraham Lincoln said on Thursday, November 19, 1863, of the fallen soldiers at Gettysburg, “to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.”
Kyle Troutman: Joy and despair
You can’t win ‘em all. That’s about all I could think to say on Tuesday morning after a wild weekend in Wildcat athletics.
Jeremiah Buntin: Halloween in the Ozarks
Just like most regions in the country, many folks in the Ozarks historically enjoyed celebrating Halloween. Celebrations were typically expressed in the form of either pranks or parties.
