Looking forward, looking back

Part 2 By Shawn Larson

If this coming year looks anything like this last weekend heading into 2022, we may be heading into another crazy year. In Atlanta this last weekend we were met with a shooting with the shooter still on the loose. Also, in Atlanta, a federal prisoner was captured. Moreover, if it wasn’t bad enough that we were in the middle of a global pandemic, the CDC and other health organizations are “very concerned” about the “Omicron” strain.

The good news/bad news is regardless of our expectations for the coming year things don’t always play out the way we think they are going to. After all, I think everyone thought icon Betty White would make it to 100 and who knows, maybe outlive us all. Remember, 2020 was supposed to be the year of fresh vision, and all of the other cool 20/20 slogans, uh not so much. Then we thought 2021 was going to be much better. In some ways, it was, while in other ways the nation continued to struggle. Here’s hoping that 2022 will be the year that we get Covid behind us and we continue to see fresh business growth, oh and by-the-way, good health!!!

Every year all of us set out new goals, make plans, and have New Year’s resolutions. We at the Journal-Sun are no different! We would like to share ours with you.

EDITORIAL PLANS FOR 2022

2022 will be an election year. Among the most notable in Cass County, we will be electing our new judge since Becky Wilbanks is retiring. Current Mayor Travis Ransom and Queen City Funeral Home owner Mike Lee have both announced the intention to run. According to Ballotpedia, these are the offices that will be contended for: County Judge; County Court at Law Judge; District Attorney; District Clerk; County Clerk; County Treasurer; Commissioner Precinct 2; Commissioner Precinct 4; Justice of the Peace Precinct 1; Justice of the Peace Precinct 2; Justice of the Peace Precinct 3; and Justice of the Peace Precinct 4. As long as the federal challenge to redistricting doesn’t succeed this will be the first year we will be voting in district one.

2022 will be the 150-year anniversary of Atlanta. Starting this week plan on seeing pictures and stories about this special year. Kate Stow has already spearheaded the effort. We plan on putting together a special section in September to culminate the opening of the time capsule commemorating the 100th Celebration which took place in 1972. Stay tuned for more information.

Hughes Springs turns 175. We will be reaching out to the city this year to see how we can best report this special time for them.

Coronavirus will continue to be something we cover, as it continues to be a health emergency.

Marvin Nichols – We will continue to follow the effort of Preserve Northeast Texas and other agencies to fight against the Marvin Nichols Reservoir.

Charles Edwin Brooks, Jr. is accused of the abuse of Blake Sampson, the two-yearold boy who was hospitalized in April of this year for life-threatening injuries. We will be watching the legal process and health of the child.

Linden Kildare CISD has New Building Projects. We will be watching and reporting on that.

Home energy increase is planned for this year. We will follow this story.

There is a new recycling/disposal site in Cass County. This will be something we will be following.

Several new businesses/renovations planned in Cass County.

Atlanta Chamber Commerce will be naming a new director. We will be featuring a story soon when that is official.

Other ideas for a story this year? Contact shawn@casscountynow.com.

Goals for the Year

In 2022 we are hoping to cover City, County, and School Board meetings

Continue to tweak and finetune newspaper

Incorporate even more of your voices in our community newspaper.

Since we have lots of talented musicians and artists, we hope to find new ways to feature the magnificent talent we have in Cass County

More video and interactive content. Please email us your ideas and if you would like your business featured in some of the video content we will be delivering

More ag and 4H content

Continue to get to know you, and further establish relationships with the key leaders and business people in this community.

Feature additional nursing home and senior content.

New Things & Changes

We realize that faith plays an important part in our community. We are going to present a new feature column that will introduce our area pastors and their ministries.

In 2021 we changed how our Readers’ Choice voting happened, moving to an all-digital voting system. It was really successful, but we plan to continue making some tweaks to make sure the voting is fair. Also, in order to make sure we get all of the certificates out in a timely manner we will be splitting up the reader’s choice into two voting events this year. We will give you more information this year.

In 2022 we will be starting a quarterly Health Magazine. Look out for that!

In 2021 we announced that we will be adding one or two interns to work as social media influencers. We plan on continuing to build our already strong social media presence, adding fresh new content and video.

In 2020 we introduced our hunter’s guide featuring Si from Duck Dynasty. Since we have so many amazing outdoor activities in our community it will become a hunting, fishing, and outdoors guide.

In 2022 we will be adding a baseball and Softball section. We are reaching out to advertisers who would like to be a part of this new opportunity. Contact shawn@casscountynow.com for more information.

Our home improvement section is one of our most popular features. This year we will have a spring and fall section.

Thank you to our advertisers

Thank our VIPs and business that go out of their way to support the newspaper. In 2021 Kelly Ashbrook, State Farm, Linden Focused Care, Cass County Equipment, Genesis Prime Care, and Kelton faithfully advertised with us every week. Jason Rawls and Capital Insurance group advertised with us every other week.

Other faithful newspaper supporters that deserve a huge thanks are Clay Collins of Bob’s Printing who was fittingly won the Chamber’s Business of the Year, Crump’s, Christus Health, Flint’s Furniture, B&G Automotive, Roark’s, ABC, Raine’s Automotive, Jerry Berry, Trico, Price Hardware, Texana Bank, CNB Bank, Powers Pharmacy, Jim Surratt Motors, BB Boon / East Texas Realty, Freeman Nursery, Encompass Health, Cornerstone Abstract, Aaron’s Rental, Amigo Juan’s, Reeder-Davis, Hanner’s, Hopkins, Harp Jewelers, Lonestar Flooring, CSNT, Groovy Armadillo, Atlanta Floral, Kelly Cox, C&H Landscape, Downtown Merchants, Offenhauser, Twitty Nursery, Texarkana College, H&R Block, U of A, Stanco, NeTX Properties, Uncle Juan’s, Bronco Pawn, Geisler, Domino Federal Credit Union, Robert Sanders, and Doctor Pratt.

These are just a handful of the businesses that have faithfully done business with your local newspaper last year. We want to thank them and those not listed. Please take time to do business with them and thank them for keeping their community newspaper strong. Our hope is to welcome more advertisers to our newspaper family this year. Please let us know if you would like to advertise with us in 2022. We would love to welcome you to the family. Contact shawn@casscountynow.com for more information.

Other Thanks

I would like to also thank our area city and county employees for the hard and thankless job they do in our community. Thank you to our area school workers that include teachers, administrators, bus drivers, custodians, nurses, and everyone else that keeps our kids safe and well educated.

I want to thank my staff, Sports Reporter Tim Emmons, Creative Designer and so much more, Melanie Rhyne, and Jamie Jeans who does a little bit of everything including our books. I also want to thank our stringers: Raydeen Edwards, Kenisha Webster, and others who have contributed to the paper. Thanks to Kate Stow, our talented feature writer, for her articles and the new content like This Old House, Christmas Yard of the Year Winner, Picture of the Week, and Mystery Photo.

I would be amiss not to thank all of our healthcare workers that have had to navigate through one of the toughest times of our generation. Thanks to everyone else in the community that works to make our county special.