INSTIGATING LOGIC
An ending and a new beginning
By JARED PUTNAM Union Sentinel Editor

My final week at the Union Sentinel has been bittersweet.

From a career standpoint, taking the sports editor position at the Forsyth County News is a great move for me.

Don't get me wrong, the past three years here at the Union Sentinel have been invaluable. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to work here, and I have gained a ton of very valuable experience here.

But in thinking about the type of situation I would like to move into as I advance my career, I kept coming back to the same qualities.

I wanted to move closer to Atlanta, but still remain in northeast Georgia. I didn't want to just go to another weekly, but I didn't want to try to go straight to the rigors of a daily paper either. I also specifically wanted a sports editor position, where I could still be involved in the writing, photojournalism and design aspects of the job.

When you begin compiling all those criteria, you develop a very small, select list of possibilities. There is usually only one or two newspapers in a county, and most of them are only weekly. On top of that, how often do those opportunities come open? Considering all this, it didn't take long for me to realize that this opportunity was too good to pass up.

However, from a personal standpoint, the decision was much harder. I was born in Blue Ridge, Ga., and after living near Calhoun until I was 10, my family moved back to this area, where I have a lot of extended family and friends. Aside from being away at college, I have lived here since.

Living in a small community, you get to develop a lot of good relationships, and those are by far the hardest thing to leave behind. Working here has been a great way to get to know a lot more people than I already did. I have spent a lot of time during the past two weeks saying goodbyes to people, even though this is by no means a real goodbye. I will still be around often enough, I will just miss getting to see a lot of people on a more regular basis.

So, what have I learned while I was working here? More than space permits me to write.

But maybe more than anything else, I have developed a profound respect for anyone who works in the journalism field, especially in a small town. This is a fun job, but it is also a demanding job. It requires a lot of work, much of which comes outside the typical 9-5 box.

During my time here, I have also been fortunate to have been able to observe the work of a lot of talented people.

That includes the people that have come before me such as Cindy Brown, other people at some of the other Sentinel newspapers, as well as very talented people at other newspapers in the area.

Personally, I enjoy the opinion columns of a sports editor at a neighboring North Carolina paper, and there are a pair of photographers in Towns County that are without a doubt the best sports photographers in this area. But these are very skilled professionals, so I'm sure most people already know how talented and dedicated they are. It shows in their work and it seems to come naturally to them.

That's why, although I'm very impressed by the work of those people, I also have to point out how much I respect the work of other journalists, the ones for whom it doesn't come naturally.

In my mind, the fact that it doesn't come easy for some only makes the dedication of such people that much more inspiring. At the very least, it's intriguing.

I can't even imagine what it must be like to put in hours upon hours covering events, only to know that virtually every photo will come out so blurry or out of focus (or in many cases, both) that people usually will not even be able to tell who or what is even in the picture.

I have tremendous respect for someone like that, because that takes a real love of what you do to keep that up week after week, month after month, year after year. Either that, or a complete unwillingness to accept the fact that you chose the wrong profession in life.

In any case, this has been a very memorable chapter of my life. One never knows what is down the road. Maybe circumstances will even present an appealing opportunity for me to work in this area, or even this county again one day. Until then, I wish nothing but the best for the Union Sentinel and the rest of Union County.