weekly paper in the coal fields of Pennsylvania. “Lou,

weekly paper in the coal fields of Pennsylvania. “Lou, if all your readers are happy, and everybody agrees with you, then you’re not doing your job,” Dad told me.

He was right. And although the angry telephone calls at sunrise on some Thursday mornings were not appreciated at the time, I can look back and say that I don’t regret for a moment the editorial positions that most often produced those calls.

What I’ll remember most, and miss the most, about Rappahannock County are its people. Both in my position as editor, and as a member of the community, I’ve been privileged to meet and talk with many of you.

As editor, I probably got to meet more people than almost anyone else, and I consider that to be one of the best fringe benefits of the job. Involvement in community activities, particularly the fire department and rescue squad, was an opportunity to return something to the county and its people — the people who gave me so much. That gave the job a richness that will be hard to match anywhere else.

If I have enjoyed any success as editor of the Rappahannock News, the credit really belongs to you, the readers. For no newspaper can succeed without an involved and responsive readership — and the readers of the Rappahannock News are certainly that.

From suggestions about possible stories to “Letters to the editor” disagreeing with positions taken by the newspaper, you, the readers, have made the paper your own.

Far too many of you have offered so much to even attempt to thank you all personally. But consider this my feeble attempt at acknowledging all the help you have given me along the way.

I will miss Rappahannock County, and its people. A number of people, when they heard about my move to the Fauquier TimesDemocrat, have remarked, “Moving on to bigger and better things, I gues&,”

My only reply is: bigger, certainly. Better? I’m not so sure. From my chair, there could be no better place than Rappahannock County.