Another year, another Profile edition to showcase Lawrence County’s past present and future.

Creating this annual special section is a labor — mostly one of love — that requires months of planning and hard work.

Each year we start working on it in October and that usually continues right up until the mid-February deadline. The last few weeks are often a chaotic frenzy.

This year — as has been the case a few times in the past — there were some moments of truth along the way where we had to ask ourselves what it was going to take to get the section done.

Complex stories that needed covering for the daily newspaper, breaking news, staffing changes and economic challenges faced by our advertisers were some of the major challenges this year.

But we were able to push through it, as always.

The end result is a 104-page edition that should be inside your newspaper today.

This is the third year of the redesigned format — like a tall magazine on newsprint — that is designed to be more reader-friendly and have a longer shelf life than a typical newspaper edition.

Profile 2013 includes what we feel are compelling stories, art and design as well as dozens of local advertisers who understand and appreciate that Lawrence County consumers keep their businesses going strong.

Fittingly, Profile always comes out around the Academy Awards so you can think of this as my Oscars speech thanking everyone.

It takes every department and every employee to create an edition of this magnitude.

These include Debbie Milem and Josh Morrison in circulation. It is their jobs to work with the more than 40 dedicated newspaper carriers to ensure that the special section actually makes it onto your porch or into your paper box.

Shirley Justice and Bonita Creger in classifieds and Shawn Randolph, Doug Pinkerton, Catherine Burcham and the inimitable Gina Milum work with advertisers to showcase their services. Without this ad support, the edition wouldn’t be possible at all.

The editorial staff of Benita Heath, Michelle Goodman, Jessica St. James, Shane Arrington, Jim Walker and Jennifer Chapman found the stories that help show how unique Lawrence County really is.

Although they would probably prefer I didn’t give them any attention or credit, graphic designers Kandi Thompson and Kelli Jameson put the whole thing together and make everyone look good.

The production crew of Bo Elliott, Mike Riffe, Gary Cochran and Kevin Baker make the process of getting the section out the door run like a well-oiled machine.

We hope you, our readers, enjoy it as much as we have enjoyed creating it.

Our focus this year is to emphasize the printed edition. So subscribers will get the edition in their newspaper as will those who buy the newspaper at the more than 100 places it is for sale across the county.

Online readers will get to enjoy it as well, but in a different format as we upload a few stories a day over the next week or so.

Are there other stories we would have liked to have included? Of course. Are there other important things going on here in Lawrence County? Absolutely.

If we don’t hit on these things in the daily newspaper or one of our other special projects throughout the year, then there’s always profile 2014.

Just don’t tell the staff I am already talking about it.

 

Michael Caldwell is publisher of The Tribune. To reach him, call (740) 532-1445 ext. 24 or by e-mail at mike.caldwell@irontontribune.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeCaldwell_IT.