Columns
“Anyone with any get-up-and-go has got up and went,” said my friend recently over a cup of coffee. Brain drain from the Ozarks, or any rural area, is nothing new. It’s not mysterious. The best and brightest native sons and daughters look around, see limited opportunities, and almost all of them...
Last week, my personal and professional Facebook pages were hacked and deleted. Eighteen years of memories and over 7,000 followers on the newspaper’s page were gone. Despite my desperate pleas to Meta and law enforcement, it appears they are unrecoverable.
A couple weeks ago, a community...
Dear reader, did you vote on April 2? Only six-point-five percent of registered voters in Howell County actually showed up at the polls. 1,344 people cast a vote. There are more than twenty thousand registered voters here.
Your ballot is the loudest in local elections. Did you notice how...
Candidate questionnaires are commonplace for newspapers and elections.
So imagine my chagrin when a candidate for the Mountain View Board of Aldermen recently shared my newspaper's questionnaire without my permission or prior knowledge.
For the upcoming April 2 municipal elections, I...
“Personnel” is not a magic word that makes the press disappear. All boards and political entities that are taxpayer-funded must abide by Missouri’s Sunshine Law, the law that regulates public access to their records and meetings.
This law was written to encourage transparency in taxpayer-...
Today, Valentine’s Day falls on Ash Wednesday. If you, like me, are someone who observes Lent and also wants to celebrate your love…today is kind of a bummer. In my house, Lent trumps a fourth-class feast day. Instead of festive flowers and thoughtful gifts, today is about fasting, wearing ashes...
Every week in these pages, I subject our elected officials to intense scrutiny. This week, I’m using this space to show that no one, especially me, is above this scrutiny. I made a mistake, and I reported something inaccurately. I’d like to make it right and make sure the truth is crystal...
There has been a video circulating on social media of Officer Israel Guidry arresting a woman inside a car wash bay in Mountain View. Allegations surrounding this video use the word “chokehold” to describe the way the officer handles the arrest.
This would be a very serious allegation if it...
Two weeks ago, I accepted the presidential gavel of the Ozark Press Association. In the 134-year history of the OPA, I am the eleventh woman to do so. Of these eleven, I can’t be sure how many are mothers. I am morally certain, however, that I am the only OPA president to ever accept that gavel...
What happened in Marion, Kansas on August 11 was illegal. The local police department served a search warrant and raided the news office of the Marion County Record as well as the home of its owner. They took computers, phones, servers, records, and essentially everything the paper needs to...