It has been a month since I moved to Greenwood. It’s hard to believe that time has flown by so fast.
It has been great getting to attend many events in that first month. That includes the Beans and Greens Dinner, the Spaghetti Supper and Fall Carnival (with bingo) at Immaculate Heart of Mary and attending my first city council meeting.
This week, I can’t wait to see the Christmas open house in downtown along with attending my first Mississippi Valley State football game against Jackson State University.
I have also gotten the chance to visit and fellowship with the Greenwood Rotary Club, where I met several of you at the club. The food was great, and the speakers have also been very good as well.
I also had a sit-down with Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann to talk about what’s going to happen in the upcoming legislative session.
I also covered my first Greenwood High School football game, the homecoming game against Yazoo City earlier this month.
There have been a lot of changes that have occurred in this month. One of those changes includes saying goodbye to our advertising manager, Larry Alderman. We’ve been working together over the past month to get me up to speed in our advertising department. I’ve begun working with Cleo Ferguson and Chad Hobson, and they are two of the best salespersons I’ve worked with in my career.
We’ve been doing a lot of cramming over the past month. I’ve been trying to absorb over 40 years’ worth of knowledge into my brain. As you can tell, I have probably been on a little bit of information overload, but Larry has been a great teacher for me.
During our time together, it feels like we’ve been planning and preparing for projects the whole time. One of those projects is our Profile edition, which we are kicking off today here in the office. You might wonder why we are starting so early on a project that won’t happen until the end of February. It’s because it takes that much time and effort to put into it so that it’s something we and the community can be proud of.
But that’s the kind of thing that has made the Greenwood Commonwealth so successful, and that is due to preparation and breaking the big project down into manageable pieces. Larry and Tim Kalich have been doing that over the past several decades.
Last week, we had the chance to honor Larry for his years of service to the Commonwealth and Emmerich Newspapers. It featured a number of guests, including Kalich and Emmerich Newspapers President Wyatt Emmerich.
I do want to apologize to Larry. I kept him tied up in my office last Wednesday until it was time for the party. The staff hurriedly set up tables for food and got the video ready to play for the party.
That’s when Wyatt walked into my office and kind of blew the surprise. By that time, I kind of felt like we had done a pretty good job of keeping it a secret, and it was time for the party to start.
I think Larry was surprised by it. In hindsight, he realized what I was trying to do, although we were taking care of work we needed to get done.
We also presented a gift to Larry, which was a framed ad from Howard’s Discount store. The ad was one of the first large-sized ads that he had sold way back when he started here 48 years ago.
We had a chance for everyone to say what they wanted about Larry. Tim, Wyatt, Cleo, Chad, managing editor Ruthie Robison, bookkeeper Kackie Kornfield and several others got a chance to talk about Larry. We also took some photos of Larry with his gift and as a staff together.
Larry’s final day with us will be on Friday, and I know the Commonwealth and Greenwood will miss him as he begins to enjoy his retirement next week.
Larry, we thank you so much for everything you’ve done for us. Congratulations on your retirement.
- Brent Maze is the editor and publisher of The Greenwood Commonwealth. Contact him at 662-453-5312 or bmaze@gwcommonwealth.com.
