The Duncan Banner

Opinion

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January 30, 2010

Is this a great place, or what?

Ron Booth

DUNCAN — After the county was without power for half of Thursday and most of Friday, the natural instinct is to protect ones own, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, the people in this county truly make it great.

People put aside all things and pulled for the common good. The Stephens County Fair & Expo Center was full of those people Friday. Sitting, standing and talking were for the betterment of the people next to them.

There was no pride involved, we all needed help. There wasn’t a person in the county that didn’t need some sort of assistance. I did, my family did and we got it. Hours of work or volunteerism weren’t counted. At the end of the day it was just good enough to get the job done.

After several discussions with Stephens County Sheriff Wayne McKinney, it was evident that not only his department, but also Duncan Police, Duncan fire and every other emergency unit in the county was pulling their weight.

When all was said and done, it was a group effort. And pardon me if I take a moment to congratulate my team members, because they all went above and beyond to put out a publication that was full of information.

Toni Hopper and Matt Tillson were on the spot covering news at the emergency shelter at the fairgrounds.

Michael Pineda was in place to do whatever was asked of him. Later in the afternoon, Kevin Kerr was out rounding up a story. Brian Hibbard was on the spot making sure that we were able to produce the pages that we needed to be able to produce.

It isn’t very often that people that I work with hear me tell them that they’ve done a good job.

And it wasn’t just the people I work with that did a great job, there can’t be enough said about the cooperation that The Banner got from all of the people at the fairgrounds.

From Sheriff McKinney to Gary Ball to Larry Sullins, everyone was great to work with each and every one of them. They didn’t ask us to do anything for them except get information out to the county.

Thanks to all of those people The Banner was able to produce a free section pertaining to the power outages that was distributed to local businesses that were open.

The next time that people say that community spirit is dead, please, share my story, or your story with them.

Also, the next time that people say that the newspaper business is dead, ask them where the information on the storm came from. People weren’t calling TV stations, they were calling on newspapers to get information to the public.

Newspapers are still the most reliable form of information.



— Ron Booth is the managing editor for The Duncan Banner. He can be reached at 580-255-5354, Ext. 166, or via e-mail at ron.booth@duncanbanner.com.

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