Fielder’s Choice - Barry Burleson


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Fielder’s Choice
By Barry Burleson

Planning 2012 profile

A new year means the newspaper staff starts thinking about its annual profile edition.

It has become a welcomed tradition, and a keepsake each year, that promotes Marshall County, its people and its places.

The edition is additional work, but the extra effort is well worth it when we see it in print and hear the good words from the community.

The support for the profile edition, as with the newspaper each week, comes from our hometown businesses and industries, and for that, we are most thankful. It’s important that we all support our hometown folks in return.

This year’s profile edition, which will tentatively be called “A Slice of Life in Marshall County,” is scheduled to be published March 8, just before spring break.

And this time around, our work load will be lightened a good bit as The South Reporter staff will be getting some valuable assistance. A group of students from the Meek School of Journalism and New Media at the University of Mississippi will be coming to Holly Springs the second week of February to conduct some interviews and take photos.

Bill Rose, a member of the faculty at Ole Miss, contacted me last year about the possibility of his students working on a project with The South Reporter. I was excited about the possibility.

I put him off until the profile edition, knowing that was our biggest project of the year.

The college students have already assisted the daily newspaper at Brookhaven and plan other visits across the state.

It’s a great thing – getting these young people some hands-on experience.

I was blessed while in high school to hook up with my hometown newspaper – covering ball games and such while in the 11th and 12th grades. That free-lancing relationship continued through college, plus I also got to write for the newspaper on campus at the University of North Alabama.

A diploma is a big plus, when entering the job market. But experience is huge. Just about any ad I’ve ever seen for any editorial type position requires clips. The publisher wants to see writing skills beforehand.

I’ve been blessed to have assistance from college students in the past, while serving as editor at both the Itawamba County Times in Fulton and the Aberdeen Examiner. Both projects were not without snags, but overall they were fun and turned out well.

The one while in Aberdeen was actually a several newspaper project promoting the Tenn-Tom Waterway and the cities and communities along the waterway.

It was a tall task but a successful one, too.

The South Reporter staff is in the process of coming up with story ideas for its 2012 profile edition. This week or next we will be passing on some of those to Bill Rose and his journalism students at Ole Miss.

If you have a suggestion, give us a call. It might not make it on this year’s list, but we will keep it for the 2013 profile and beyond. We actually add names to the list throughout the year in anticipation of the annual edition.

So if you get a call from myself, Sue Watson or Bill Rose about being featured in the profile edition, we hope you will say “yes.”

It will help us move forward with our “Slice of Life.”

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