For What It's Worth

In my commercial broadcasting career, I spent three years on the air at a radio station in Coffeyville, Kansas, where I did a daily music show and covered local sports.

I was new to the area and wasn’t familiar with some of the locations, especially how those towns were pronounced.

If you listen to someone on the air, such as a television news anchor/reporter or weatherperson, and you hear them mispronounce the name of a town or the name of a prominent person, you quickly label them in your mind as “not being from around here.” For instance, when I came to Mississippi I quickly had to learn that the name of the county where Oxford is the county seat is `luh-FAY-ett’ and not how you might think it is pronounced.

So, on one of the first days at this radio station, I was taken to a large map of the state of Kansas and Oklahoma. A staffer started to point out communities on the map, asking me to say them out loud.

“How do you say Neodesha?” I was asked. “How do you say Fredonia? How about Chanute, Iola, and even Miami, Oklahoma?” This was how I became familiar with the area I was going to be working in.

Answers to the questions are, by the way, ‘nee-oh-dehSHAY’, ‘frih-DOHN-yah’, ‘shuhNOOT’, ‘eye-OH-lah’, and in Oklahoma, the city Miami does not end with an ‘ee,’ but `mah’. And, I’ll give you a free one. Locals in Kansas pronounced the Arkansas River as ‘ar-KAN-suhs’ and there’s a location along the river called Arkansas City, or ‘ar-KANsuhs’ City. The river changes its name to the familiar ‘Ar-kansaw’ once it hits the Oklahoma state line, or so they told me. It was allowed that we just call the city Ark City.

I say all this because last week I got my lesson in learning this area, not through pronunciation, but through a ride-a-long. I have heard of the places in Marshall County, like Cayce, Red Banks, Victoria, Watson, and Chulahoma, but frankly hadn’t frequented those locations living in DeSoto County.

We were short a person last week delivering the newspaper once it was printed and returned to us for delivery. There are machines to fill, papers from the previous week to pick and drop off this week’s edition at a number of stores that have them on hand, plus a labeled supply to the post office for mailing, things like that.

That brought me to the office early Wednesday morning where Bonnie Gurley and Jim Crumpton were busy stacking and bundling papers together for Faye Cooke and me to load into the van.

Once the van was filled for our route, I became the driver and Faye was in charge. She told me where to go and how to get there, becoming my copilot and my GPS. I was amazed at her knowledge of the route, looking at the different locations we had to go and then telling me when to turn left, turn right, and what side of the road the store was located.

I got to see the countryside, the area we cover, places I had never been through before, and even got to see a couple of cows grazing alongside the roadway! It was a good morning.

That’s how Faye and I spent our Wednesday, getting your news out for you to receive and read. It’s a routine like that The South Reporter uses each week to deliver the news. People like me, our staff writer Sue Watson and our contributors, go out and gather information daily and write the stories of what is happening in Holly Springs and throughout Marshall County. We add photos where appropriate and then send them to our production manager Barbara Taylor. She then puts on the pages what we have written, plus photos, classifieds and advertisements together onto the pages for printing. The final product is transmitted to our printer and then brought back to the office. That’s when people like Jim, Bonnie, and Faye become the key components to sending The South Reporter out for you to buy or be mailed to you.

There’s a lot behind keeping Holly Springs and Marshall County informed each week, down to Cayce, Victoria, Watson, Red Banks, Chulahoma, Potts Camp, Byhalia, and Hickory Flat. I’m sure I left a place out, but I’m learning. I hope you appreciate the dedicated work we continually do to keep you informed.

That’s how I spent last Wednesday morning. It was my lesson in location, and it reminded me again of the people who take what we do out to be delivered.

I’d even suggest that if you might be interested in learning more about what we do, then give us a call at The South Reporter at 662-252-4261 and we’d be happy to tell you more.

Use that number to also reach me or Sue with story ideas, so we can, like I say, ‘justify our existence’ or a daily basis.

That’s all I have for now.... for what it’s worth.

Bob Bakken is editor of The South Reporter.