I’ve been thinking about doing this for some time, and it’s finally come to a point where it seems like the best solution.  I’ve decided to start a direct editorial column where I can do a few needed things, and I chose a terrible pun as a way to package it.  In this case, the crow’s nest has nothing to do with sailing.  Rather, I mean to use this as a place where I can “crow” about things that are positive and deserving of praise that I come across during the week, but also as a place to “eat crow” about things from recent weeks in print.  

While the latter is the more compelling cause for writing this, it is my hope that the former will get just as much space!

First off—the error toplines. Tresie Carter lives in Oneida County, and she was awarded recognition by the Oneida County 4-H.  A caption under her picture incorrectly noted that the award came from Caribou County.  While I imagine that Justin Hatch, Rachel Hamilton, Lisa Barfuss and the others in Caribou County very much respect the efforts of Tresie Carter, they did not give her an award.  

Second, the Dueling Pianos fundraiser event for the Oneida Crisis Center is on Friday, October 3, and the PTO Carnival is on Thursday, Oct. 2.  The date for the Pianos event was incorrectly listed in last week’s paper. 

These faults are mine, of course, and I apologize.  I also apologize for the smaller errors that are an inevitable part of putting out so much information in one go every week.

I think now is as good a time as any to explain that the immediate reason is that for the last year and a half or so, the Enterprise staff has also been putting out a paper in Caribou County.  I think a lot of people are aware of that, but in case you weren’t, yes—we also put out a Thursday paper that primarily goes out to Soda, Grace, and Bancroft.  The production days are the same, and the only difference for us is that instead of Allison Eliason covering sports, we have Jody Reeves.  

It hasn’t really come up in the pages of this paper because my intention has been to keep the two papers as separate as possible.  While there are some overlapping contents at times—and people in Caribou County have had the benefit of Allison’s Ag column, among other things—the papers are largely unique with regard to contents.  Different city councils, county commissions, school districts, businesses, community organizations, and so on mean that there aren’t a lot of items that can be shared.

My point is raising this is to explain that if you see a Caribou County reference pop up somewhere—like in a caption, for instance—it’s likely because the designer and I are putting the two papers together at the same time, back and forth, on Tuesday and a wire gets crossed somewhere.  That’s not an excuse, just an explanation.  A wrong date, like with the Dueling Pianos article, come from similar cross-talk discussions that we usually catch, but not always.  There was an early-on incident in Caribou County where a labeling issue caused hundreds of people to receive the Malad paper, which was its own crow eating marathon, and a ton of door-to-door delivery apologies.

My hope is always to minimize the chance for those kinds of issues, and to correct them as much as is possible.  Thus, here is the picture of Tresie Carter, who is an amazing leader, with the correct caption.  And on the front page is a date correction that is hopefully in enough time to catch the right eyes.  And again, an apology.

And now to the positive stuff!  As part of the course of events, I have become an Ambassador with the America250 planning group in Oneida County.  Each county was given the task of coming up with a plan to celebrate the 250th anniversary of 1776 and its attendant historical milestones, and the Oneida County group held its first organizational meeting a couple weeks ago.  The group was originally taken on by Leigh Love, and has grown to include a number of other citizens from different walks of life.  So far, it includes Lon Colton, Leigh Love, Jaime Olsen, Kathleen Atkinson, Shanci Dorius, Luke Zitting, Candy Broadus, myself, Jean Thomas, Trissa Nesbit, Melanie Coleman, Kristy Eliason, Lindsay Waldron, Tyrell Neal, and Brian Jeppsen, as well as others.  

At the first meeting, we discussed some broad ideas for how to lead up to next year’s culminating events in June and July, and what to do along the way.  The first visible event will be the Homecoming parade next week, for which a float is being put together to promote awareness of the project, and access to materials about America250.  As part of that plan, the paper will also be presenting material related to upcoming America250 events.  

Thank you for letting me get this out, and I expect there will never be another error in the the paper again.