We wish a good friend good luck

I’ve been at the Daily American Republic for more than 15 years. It’s hard to believe how fast, and how slow, time can pass.

I’ve collected more than my fair share of stories about my co-workers in that time, both funny, happy and sad.

Someone that I’ve worked closely with over the years is assistant editor Paul Davis.

I’m not quite sure how it happened, but for many years we had acquired the “disaster” beat.

That meant if there was a fire, flood, train derailment or other catastrophes, we were usually the ones sent out to cover it.

We waded through high water in Piedmont when flash flooding severely damaged sections of the town in 2008. Paul and I watched with a great deal of surprise on that trip as someone at a shelter for evacuees took a very unhappy and full-grown pig out of the trunk of a car. We weren’t sure we would be able to get back to Poplar Bluff because of the flash flooding that kept closing roads, but we made our morning deadline.

We always made the morning paper somehow (causing no end of tense moments for those on the other side of the production line, I know).

Another year, we were on the road in time to be in Silva by sunrise following a tornado and then back to Poplar Bluff to have copy and photos ready for our 10:30 a.m. deadline.

There was a trip to Van Buren for a fire that destroyed the building housing the Current Local, and later for the historic 2017 flooding. We were standing under the Current River bridge when the roof of a house floated downstream.

Other trips took us to Dexter for train derailment and sections of southern Butler County for more floods and tornadoes.

There was also hunting tagged rattlesnakes with wildlife refuge personnel at Mingo, a canoe trip for a story on fall travel and a — fortunately distant — encounter with a rather large cottonmouth.

And of course the five-year Wappapello Dam inspections, where water is drawn down to allow officials inside the tunnel to the spillway outlet.

Despite the millions of gallons of water that have pounded through that tunnel for more than 80 years, you can still see the imprint of the wood grain on the walls from the boards used to form the concrete.

Working in the newspaper business can feel a little like that — a constant, sometimes brutal, flow of information moving at a break-neck pace all too often.

It may be true that the reader doesn’t often remember the byline or the photo credit, but the imprint of the moments we have captured, the emotions and the record of tragedy and triumph, continue to stand. They live on in the permanent record preserved in places like the Poplar Bluff Municipal Library archives, the informational displays and books that include DAR clippings in places like the Wappapello Lake visitor center, and most importantly, the cutouts of newspapers carefully preserved by family members whose lives have been touched.

Paul has been part of that for more than 24 years, but over time, our dreams and priorities evolve, and that is happening for Paul next week. He’s closing this chapter for a job that will allow him more time to focus on his true passions, photography and being a grandfather.

We’re all sad to say goodbye, but excited for Paul and all of the good we know is to come in his next chapter.

Donna Farley is the editor of the Daily American Republic. She can be reached at dfarley.dar@gmail.com.