Our North Canal Street newspaper office was the site of a feud a few weeks ago and four people walked away with the money.

No one was injured, at least not physically, and most everyone is over it now. That’s because our feud was a friendly one, or to be more precise, it was a Family Feud.

As we always do sometime in early October, our employees shirked their normal duties for a bit more than an hour in order to get competitive and win a few prizes.

We opted this year to play a few rounds of the popular TV game show, “Family Feud.”

But instead of surveying 100 random people, we had posed, several weeks prior, a list of questions to our building’s employees. Many of the questions revolved around how our employees think you, the reader, reads, talks about and thinks about our newspaper.

Four family groups — the self-named Vandelays, Kennedys, Munsters and Colombians — went head-to-head until there was one team winner.

The group split the prize money and still hangs on the bragging rights.

Aside from random fun, which is always important in the workplace, we had another goal in mind.

The time was set aside as a kickoff for our busiest season of the year, the season that comes between fall and winter at the newspaper. We call it Profile season.

The day after the fun was over, our staff began work on the Profile 2013 edition.

Those of you who’ve been reading The Democrat for years likely know what I’m talking about. Profile is a special section that comes out on the last Sunday of February and contains nearly 40 stories profiling the lives of our local people, the stories of our community and the history that created us.

For quite a few years now, we’ve produced the publication in a magazine-style format with nearly 150 pages inside.

It’s a fun publication for us because we get to tell stories about people — not just stories about government, crime, tragedy and so many other things that can consume our time day in and day out.

We hope it’s a fun section for you for the same reason.

Because the project is so large, and because we do it on top of producing a daily newspaper and maintaining the workload we already have, we spend approximately five months of the year working on Profile.

That time, we hope, helps make it awesome.

Some of you may receive a phone call or a visit from a reporter, photographer or marketing representative in the next two months about being a part of Profile. Story assignments have already been made, but finding the right source is always the key to a good story.

Some local businesses were quick to jump on board as advertisers in the section since they know it’s a wonderful way to market their own message to thousands of local eyes. We’ve been publishing a list of those already involved in the newspaper lately.

Other businesses will be approached soon as our staff has the time to work around town, but you can certainly call us first. Just call 601-445-3623 if you want to market your business in Profile.

We’ll continue work into February, ultimately bringing Profile 2013 to your doorstep on Sunday, Feb. 24.

We’ll keep you posted as work continues, since Profile is truly your story. Our newspaper has been lucky to tell that story of this community — including its family feuds — for decades, and we promise we’ll give it our all once again.

 

Julie Cooper is the managing editor of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.