From the Editor

Let’s see … I’m at an age when just lifting myself off the couch can cause injury, my cat keeps strolling across the keyboard and my first day on the job just happened – through no preconceived notion of the bosses, I’m sure – to fall on April Fool’s day.

So much for introductions.

Over the next few weeks I expect to learn something of this town’s interests, people and streets. Despite my new guy status, however, I’ve already contributed greatly to Sidney’s economy.

That’s right, for the past two years I served as editor down the road in Kimball. So Safeway, Wal-Mart, Fox Theater, Cabela’s, Steffens, the restaurants – I know them all.

Yet before taking over in Kimball, this part of the world was unfamiliar to me. I moved to small town Nebraska from the wilds of Dallas, Texas, where I worked as a restaurant critic and food editor. Before that I held down similar duties at an English language weekly in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic.

Mark Twain famously wrote “I am not the editor of a newspaper and shall always try to do right and be good so that God will not make me one.” And for much of my career I agreed, preferring to work beats, file copy and let those with more patience and a better grasp of language wrestle with office tasks.

The Prague Post changed all that. The paper hired me as critic and editor of the food section. Before long they added sports editor to my slate. I found myself covering Czech baseball league games—yes, they exist—one day, corresponding for international soccer the next then visiting restaurants and writing about it all.

I even followed the lead of George Plimpton, putting together a series on my trial as third string quarterback for the Prague Lions of the Czech League of America Football.

Yes, such a thing also exists. I have the torn rotator cuff and bum knees to prove it.

This is what I love about journalism and, now, about desk jobs at papers that allow their editors to write: at any moment you may be listening to court proceedings, regaled with stories from a World War Two veteran, watching a high school football player break free for a long touchdown or flipping through similarly diverse stories turned in by outstanding reporters.

The days and nights in this profession are exhilarating. Every one of them offers a chance to learn and relate.

So it is our role to tell of the many and varied aspects of Sidney and the surrounding area, whether good or bad, heartbreaking or inspirational. As publisher and editor, I hope to meet all of you along the way, sooner rather than later … if I can get out of my seat without straining something in the process.

Contact Dave Faries at [email protected]