There are certain people you meet in life who stand out among others. They have a great love for God, their family, their job and community, as well as others they may not even know.
I have been blessed to meet several people of this caliber in my life. And today, I want to pay tribute to one such woman, whom I admire and look up to as a personal friend and mentor in the newspaper business — Nancy Green, or “Miss Nancy,” as we affectionately called her at The Star-Herald in Kosciusko.
When I moved to Kosciusko in 1998, taking on my first job as a managing editor, Miss Nancy and the crew at the paper welcomed me with open arms.
At that time, Miss Nancy had been at the paper about 45 years, and I felt a little funny about being her supervisor. She had probably forgotten more about the newspaper business than I will ever learn in my lifetime.
Miss Nancy started out as a typesetter, and she worked her way through the ranks to the job she holds today — people and events editor.
During my time there, she was a joy to work with. She always did her job very quietly and professionally, and many of the awards on the wall at The Star-Herald have her name on them, and rightly so. She more than deserves each honor.
But Miss Nancy does not like to be in the spotlight. I learned that well during my tenure there. Each October, The Star-Herald publishes a section that features some of the hard-working ladies in the community.
While most newspapers don’t highlight their own employees very often, we thought Miss Nancy was very worthy of a story and photo in the edition. After all, anyone who works at the same location for 45 years deserves a little recognition.
To accomplish this feat, we had to be a little sneaky. Miss Nancy and I always chatted as we worked, so I asked her some questions about her career, secretly keeping notes along the way. Then, I took the camera one day and told her to smile. She thought I was checking the batteries. Little did she know what we had planned.
Miss Nancy always proofed special sections for me, so I had to tell a little fib as to why one page was left empty that day. I think I told her that an ad or something was going in that space.
After she left, I put the story and photo in place — that was when we still pasted up the pages using hot glue and a light table — and shipped it off to the printers.
When the papers came in the office the next day around noon, Miss Nancy picked up the edition and began to thumb through. It didn’t take her long to realize what we had done.
Boy was she mad. She gave us a good tongue-lashing and just couldn’t believe that we would do this to her. She was completely mortified that her picture and story were in our paper.
I quickly explained that we were not trying to embarrass her, but we felt she deserved to be recognized for her many years of service.
I believe that deep down she was honored by what we had done, but she would never let us know that. She works hard and does so much for the community, but she never wants her contributions to be acknowledged publicly to bring attention to herself.
I think the Bible teaches us that is the way we all should be. We should do things in private, and God will reward us openly.
We all could take a lesson from Miss Nancy on that.
The thing I treasure most about Miss Nancy is her friendship. I can always count on her for anything. While I was in Kosciusko, I looked to her for advice and guidance, not only for things pertaining to my job but in my personal life as well.
I felt like the entire Green family adopted me while I was living there.
I went to church with Miss Nancy’s brother- and sister-in-law, H.T. and Mary Green.
And every Sunday, they insisted that I eat lunch with them. It was a wonderful feeling for a girl almost two hours from her family to be sitting around the table with H.T. and Mary and Miss Nancy and her late husband, Charles. We had such a wonderful time of fellowship — times I will treasure forever.
A few years after I moved from Kosciusko, Miss Nancy faced a great tragedy in her life. Mr. Charles was killed at their home just on the outskirts of town, and Miss Nancy found him when she went home for lunch.
The news of his death reached Greenwood later that afternoon, and I took off and went back to Kosciusko for the funeral services.
Mr. Charles was killed in 2002, and for years there was no trace of who committed the heinous crime. But last week, six years after the killing, the Attala County Sheriff’s Department issued an arrest warrant for a suspect in the case.
Having talked with Miss Nancy this week, I could hear the relief in her voice. And she was quoted in The Star-Herald as saying, “This is the first step leading to the process that will hopefully bring justice and a sense of completeness to a tragedy that has affected every member of the family. The pain of our loss will always be with us.”
Despite losing her husband, Miss Nancy persevered. She has continued to work and be a vital part of the community there, and she never gave up hope that her husband’s killer would be found and brought to justice. It is truly an answered prayer for Miss Nancy and all the Green family.
Miss Nancy has now been at The Star-Herald for 55 years, and she will be honored next week by the Mississippi Press Association as the 2008 Employee of the Year.
I congratulate Miss Nancy on her award. She is a wonderful newspaper woman, a great friend and a true Southern lady. I can’t think of anyone more deserving.
