On my drive to begin my new job in Natchez, I sang.

For me, that’s nothing unusual. However, instead of the usual eclectic mix, this time the lyrics followed a theme.

“I’m coming home, I’ve done my time …”

“Take me home, country road, to the place I belong…”

You get the gist.

I am delighted to be at work again at The Democrat, where my career began a little more than 30 years ago, and in Natchez, where I was born and raised.

My father, the late Jim Griffey, came to Natchez in the early 1950s to play baseball for the Natchez Indians. He later went to work for Armstrong Tire and Rubber Co. and was working there when he died unexpectedly at the young age of 42.

I am a product of what was then-Montebello Elementary and Junior High, during the time when Freddie Seab and Sam Reynolds were at the helm.

I caught the newspaper bug from Charlie Ross, who was the adviser of The Echoes, the student newspaper at South Natchez-Adams High School.

In 1980, the year I graduated, Coach Ed Reed was working his magic on the football field with his version of the Notre Dame Box. Richard Williams, who later took Mississippi State to the Sweet 16, was coaching basketball. And today’s Trinity Coach Faye Minor was tearing up the hardwoods for the Lady Colonels.

Also while a South Natchez student, I learned about Natchez city government by serving on former Mayor Tony Byrne’s Mayor’s Youth Council and about Mississippi politics by working the polls for former State Sen. Bob Dearing on one of his first runs for statewide office.

It was, indeed, the best of times.

This newspaper has been a part of my life since I was a young girl. My step-father, the late Bill Wall, and I were the early risers in my house. We would sit at the kitchen counter, drinking coffee — mine more milk and sugar than coffee — and discuss stories in The Democrat until the rest of the household woke up.

When I was in about the third grade, I heard for the first time the famous “Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,” thanks to The Democrat, which had reprinted it for the holiday season.

Bill, whose background was in radio, read that story aloud to me. In doing so, he saved, for at least one more year for me, the innocence of the Christmas season.

I wandered into The Democrat after my first year in college, needing a part-time summer job, and the rest is history.

My career with Boone Newspapers, The Democrat’s parent company, has come full circle. It’s taken me from Ohio to Michigan to Alabama and now it has brought me home.

My job at The Democrat will be something like that of a utility hitter. I’ll get to help out in a number of different departments, and I can’t wait to get started.

I am proud of my journey, but I’m happy to be home in this city, which has more personality than any I’ve ever experienced.

Just like Dorothy said, there’s no place like home.

 

Jan Griffey is editor and associate publisher of The Natchez Democrat. She can be reached at 601-445-3551 or jan.griffey@natchezdemocrat.com.