Chuck Mason

As you may have noticed, there have been a few changes recently at The Marshall Democrat-News.

Today is my last day at the paper and Eric Crump was recently named editor.

Since November of 2005, I have been honored to serve as editor of the paper. I thank Publisher Shelly Arth for the confidence that she placed in me and I wish her the best.

Crump understands community journalism, so I leave the paper in capable hands in the editorial department. He is ably assisted by staff writers Zach Sims and Rachel Harper, both of whom bring a positive attitude to the newsroom with their articles and pictures.

One addition we made to the newsroom during my time here was the re-instituting of a news clerk position, a person responsible for the obituaries, social news and other local items that appear each day in the paper.

Kathy Fairchild has filled that role of news clerk, and, as an added bonus, has become a regular contributor to the paper's Friday editorial page through her column OBTW.

I am leaving the paper to re-join my family in North Carolina, specifically, the "Tobacco Road" community of Raleigh, North Carolina's capital city.

I will be trading the lifestyle of Marshall for a community that -- with the addition of Durham and Chapel Hill -- forms one point of what is called the Triangle in North Carolina.

The area has 1.3 million people, second in size only to the Charlotte metropolitan area's 1.6 million population in the state.

But as I learned years ago from a businessman in Texas, there is a difference between quantity and quality.

He worked to distribute the Dallas Morning News newspaper while at the time I worked for a weekly newspaper called the DeSoto News-Advertiser. He told me once that while he dealt in quantity, we at the weekly dealt in quality.

That's how I have viewed my tenure here at The Marshall Democrat-News.

We deal in quality.

There is an attempt

made here each day to bring you the best community newspaper that our resources and talents can provide. Our market and our mission is Saline County, Missouri.

Stories, pictures and news releases all are designed to deal with Saline County -- from Blackburn to Slater, Miami to Malta Bend, Marshall to Marshall Junction.

Since I came to Marshall to run the editorial department of the paper, we've tried to increase the amount of agriculture news in the paper through the efforts of staff writer Marcia Gorrell, the local content and the number of pictures of local people.

Sports editor Chris Allen continues to do a wonderful job of covering the local sports scene, a job that took him several months ago to the frozen north of Sioux Falls, S.D., when Missouri Valley College's football team made its amazing run to claim the NAIA title. The Vikings fell just one game short of their goal, providing fans across the country with the thrills and spills of a championship season.

I enjoyed, in a way, nearly freezing to death to see that football game in South Dakota.

Marshall also found itself on the national stage in another way when the public library board decided to remove two graphic novels from its shelves following a series of complaints during a public hearing attended by county residents.

Only recently, after the development of a materials selection policy by the library board, have the books been returned to the shelves.

Earlier this month, Saline Countians marked the one-year anniversary of the 165-mile-an-hour tornadoes that struck families and farms along Route H and heavily damaged the MFA swine operation. The twisters also exploded the United Church of Christ church, which was in the unfortunate path of the mighty winds.

Twelve million dollars in damage resulted from the tornadoes that passed less than 10 miles from Marshall, but thank God, no lives were lost in the destruction.

Homes have been rebuilt, the swine facility restored and the church re-rebuilt and dedicated. Indeed, life goes on.

I learned from that experience to keep an eye on the weather in the Midwest -- weather patterns that shift at the drop of a hat.

I also learned from that experience the wonderful community spirit and work ethic found in the Midwest. People cleaned up the damage and went quietly and efficiently about the business of restoring their lives.

I will now be living in a North Carolina community where winter is essentially an afterthought and the summer temperatures can reach upwards of 114 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the shade -- during the summer.

I will again trade -- this time trading tornadoes for hurricanes. Raleigh is only a two-hour drive from the Atlantic Coast and the hurricane season in North Carolina is just as unnerving as the tornado season in Missouri.

Our community was also saddened by tragedy during my time here as three murders occurred in the city of Marshall. Those court trials await. The trials of those charged in the Shepard murders will take place outside of the county because of venue change requests already granted.

I would anticipate people will have a high interest in those court proceedings.

Through my time here I have had the assistance and counsel of many good people. Advertising Director Mike Davis, Business Manager Sandra Walter, Circulation Manager Pat Morrow and Pressroom Supervisor Adam Walker have all been invaluable in their insight to a man who wasn't born in Marshall and who does not have family here.

It's important to have a background of a community -- its expectations and foibles -- if you are going to do the job of a newspaper editor.

I've been fortunate to have the counsel of many people who understand the dynamics of the communities in Saline County.

As I've often said, a newspaper is a mirror. We reflect what the community reflects. I'm sure that I made decisions that either disappointed or infuriated readers, and for that I have empathy for the views of those with which I disagreed.

It was never personal and I didn't take any complaints personally. Decisions have to be made in light of the time and talents of those who bring you your daily newspaper five days a week. There may have been segments of the community expecting newspaper coverage that did not materialize in one fashion or another.

There are only so many people and so many work hours allocated to produce the paper. Sometimes we ran out of both.

If we found an error had been made, we tried to correct that error quickly as possible. We regret the errors made at The Marshall Democrat-News but we don't apologize for our efforts to get the story or the picture right.

About half of the time, readers cheer our efforts and about half of the time they don't like what we've done. That's the way it is supposed to be. If you loved us all the time, we wouldn't be doing our job: comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comforted.

As I leave today, I take with me countless good memories of Marshall and Saline County. This has been an experience of personal growth for me and one that I will not soon forget.

Goodbye and Godspeed.

Mason is the former editor of The Marshall Democrat-News.