I’ve had bosses.
They run the gamut from awful to special to spectacular.
Then there’s those that go above and beyond, lead by example, get the job done and like a rising tide, they raise all ships around them. My boss here at The E-T is the latter. Bryan Davis. The Yazoo County native spent time at Holmes Juco then finished his schooling at Delta State so his knowledge of the Delta was pretty extensive by the time he landed his gig here in Sunflower County. I met him via phone back in 2017 when another publication gave me the task of writing about this new Editor/Publisher of The E-T.
Now, I worked for the OG Jim Abbott, who took The E-T to heights no one had ever seen. He worked to cover every inch of Sunflower County and even did some “time” at Parchman to get some real facts back in the day. His extraordinary coverage of news, events, and sports became the “norm” for the subscribers. Once he moved into retirement, the paper had some adequate folks in charge, but I never got to connect personally with them or work for them. However, when Bryan came to town and got settled, I was on a grand tour of my homeland, reconnecting all kinds of dots and re-laying the maps of my youth.
One of my freelance gigs as a Clarion Ledger columnist had come to an end, but most of my subjects were pretty much Sunflower County-related. Bryan extended a job to work for him as a columnist, writer, and more and I leapt at the chance.
On that same trip, he showed me a box in a storage room at the newspaper office. There were writing awards and plaques that spilled over. The hard work from Mr. Abbott and his fine and capable staff. The foundation of the paper.
Now every writer likes winning awards—whether they’ll admit it or not is another thing. It gives validation to the work. And to be honored by your peers, now that’s even more special.
Bryan has entered my work into the Mississippi Press Association awards each year and I’ve got a trophy and certificates that bring me joy.
But when I saw the post made for The Enterprise-Tocsin and the entire table-full of awards and plaques and even the special recognition of only four newsrooms with The E-T being one, that made me smile and swell with pride for my boss-man. He works hard, takes care of the three women and baby boy in his home (with much admiration and thanks to his wife Callie who does the heavy lifting while he’s in the office and out on the road covering meetings and games and everything else.)
The paper you hold in your hands is award-winning – for decades.
It’s not an easy job to meet deadlines, especially when yours truly isn’t meeting his own. But Bryan breaks it down, puts it together – with a fine and more than capable and very extra-ordinary staff of his own.
I’m proud to be part of his team and will be here as long as he sees fit.
Congrats to Bryan and all of The E-T staff for following Mr. Abbott’s footsteps and his high bar of journalism set in Sunflower County.
