Even in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, I never thought of the possibility of missing a paper.
There was talk then that interstate travel might be shut down, which could have impeded our printer from receiving shipments of paper. That’s about the closest we came to not having a print edition of The E-T.
We came a lot closer last week, as two rounds of winter weather paralyzed much of the state when it came to logistics. The U.S. Postal Service had no choice but to shut down mail delivery in many counties, ours included.
There’s always a chance with winter weather of prolonged power outages, which would have shut the presses down in the Delta, leaving us no choice but to delay or even cancel the paper.
But we continued with our daily activities at The E-T as if we were going to have a paper, and as if that paper was going to be delivered on time.
All things considered we were pretty fortunate here in the Delta.
Yes, the paper was late, but we did get one out.
If you waited for the paper to come by mail, you probably have about 48 pages of news to read this week. We tried to steer clear of putting too much pertinent news in last week’s edition, knowing it would probably be way outdated information by the time it got to subscribers.
We relied heavily on Facebook and our website to deliver up-to-the-minute news to our readers.
Meanwhile, we did fill up the paper with several pages of snow and ice photos, some features and plenty of sports, as always.
Putting the paper together was not at all difficult. We were able to work from home without interruption thanks to the fact that we didn’t have any prolonged outages in Indianola.
The dicey part came on Wednesday morning when the Delta Democrat Times finished printing The E-T.
Randy Jones, who is the son of our wonderful office manager Debbie Bethel, graciously drove from Leland to Greenville to pick up the papers and then back to Indianola.
By this time, the sky was spitting pellets of sleet as precipitation began to fall from the second round of winter weather that week.
We felt like the roads were clear enough after Tuesday’s melt that we could deliver to some of our racks and dealers.
We got most of Highway 82 delivered, as well as a few places downtown.
Then came the big decision. Do we go to Ruleville?
Randy, who has lived all over the country and has driven in winter weather many times said, “This is nothing.”
I put my trust in him, and we headed north of the county.
The goal was to deliver to both Ruleville Double Quick locations and put papers in the rack at Sullivan’s grocery store in Ruleville.
Around 2:30 on Wednesday, we accomplished that goal and began to head back to town.
By the time we got past Sunflower, the sleet was coming down pretty hard.
We wrapped up things pretty quickly when we got back to town, and Randy went on his way.
I’m very thankful that Randy took time away from the warmth of his home in Leland to assist me in getting the paper to enough places that people could get them if they wanted them bad enough.
I’m also thankful to my staff who stuck it out and worked to get the paper done when a lot folks would have written the week off.
COVID did not cause us to cancel a paper in 2020, and the great winter storm of 2021 did not succeed either.
As long as I am here, I’m going to make sure that I do everything in my power to get you a newspaper each week.
