Twenty-five years ago, Randy and I decided to become owners of a small community newspaper and headed to Polk County with two young kids, a dog, a few plants and a houseful of furniture. We said good-bye to Southern Maryland and our Washington-Baltimore roots. Leaving the city wasn’t too difficult since we had already decided we weren’t city folks when we made the move to rural Southern Maryland (not so rural any more).

At the time, the Polk County News was celebrating its 100th anniversary and Polk County was close to declaring bankruptcy because of the ongoing tax dispute with Tennessee Chemical Company (we didn’t know that at the time!). Aware of the responsibility of becoming caretakers for a county institution and determined to provide a way for citizens to be knowledgeable about their county, we jumped into it. Within a few years, we combined the Copperhill Citizen-Advance with the Polk County News, thus serving all of our county and giving Polk folk from both sides of the county an idea how the other half lives.

We’ve never looked back and never regretted our decision.

As we began looking at old newspapers in preparation for this week’s special section, we became even more aware of the awesome responsibility of local newspapers. While many of the earlier newspapers carried national news -- apparently from an outside provider -- the heart of the paper has always been Polk County, from births and deaths to murders and political mayhem.

In addition to getting a look at the county’s past, it’s been fun seeing the changing writing styles for both stories and headlines. In making selections to include in this edition, we tried to choose a variety that included some of the hot news of the day, interesting tidbits, and samples of these styles through the decades. (In deference to remaining family members, we avoided some of the more sensational news of murders and trials, which seemed to be much more plentiful then than now.)

As we meandered through a hundred year’s worth of old newspapers, it deepened our commitment to community journalism. In these uncertain times, it’s even more important for small communities to be reminded that they too have value. At a time when global news arrives instantly through 24-hour TV news programs and the Internet, it’s even more important that we can still be grounded in our home towns, that we can find out who’s getting married, who died, and who made the honor roll.

The best thing about a local newspaper is that people still matter. When we arrived in Polk County, it didn’t take long to realize the joys that come from a small community where heritage and local culture are still a part of life. It’s one thing to hear about Southern hospitality and people who really care about one another; it’s another thing to be a part of it.

We’re sure glad to be here.