Opinion

As we approach the final days of 2023, I don’t think I have ever been as busy as I have the last few weeks. Our first year as owners of a small weekly newspaper has been nothing short of fantastic.

With 2023 coming to a close, I am excited to officially announce a new project that has been in the works for the past year. “Through the Years: The Magazine,” is a new publication created by yours truly.

My poor fins got worn to nubs on Saturday trying to get all the angles of the Cassville Christmas Parade on Saturday.

Amidst the lawsuits, citizen groups and heightened community interest, there has been a change in the state’s tune in the last week on how it is handling Denali Water Solution’s land applications of processed waste in Missouri.

It began with a newspaper article about a woman who had started an Imagination Library affiliate in our county. I had learned that, due to the Purdy community’s lack of access to books, we qualified as a book desert, which greatly bothered me.

Holiday traditions are a dime a dozen, but creating new one that stands the test of time is easier said than done — yet, we have a new Black Friday tradition at the Troutman house. We always host Thanksgiving for my mom’s side of the family, as we are the most centrally located between Little Rock, east Oklahoma and southeast Kansas where they all live.

In many places, groups of Christians observe seasons of the year as they correspond to events in salvation history or in the life of Christ. In many places, the beginning of a Christian year would be marked by a season commemorating the coming of Christ, called Advent.