Christmas is over, and New Year’s is just days away.

Normally, this week is a pretty slow week for most folks. School is still out, so the children are around.

Most shopping has been done so all that’s left is returning gifts that either don’t fit, size-wise or simply don’t fit as to need or desire.

It’s also a good time to simply look back a bit and reflect on the year coming to a close.

All and all, will we remember 2015 a good year or one we wish we could forget? As in most cases, it’s likely all about perspective.

For Natchez, 2015 was a year of planning and adjusting. City leaders and tourism officials have been planning and investing time and dollars into the upcoming 2016 tricentennial celebration which will begin next week but continue all year long.

Regardless of the plans on tap, reaching 300 years of existence is a pretty big feat for an American city and Natchez should be proud of its longevity.

As plans continue to jell for the tricentennial birthday bash in August, the city’s collective excitement should continue to build.

For the newspaper, we celebrated 150 years of existence; just more than half of Natchez’s existence, The Natchez Democrat has been covering the news of our area.

We hope and expect to be covering the community for decades more to come, and with your continued readership and support, that will be a certainty.

Yours truly will celebrate a minor life milestone next month. In January, I will have been back at The Democrat and leading the newspaper for 10 years.

Some days it seems just like yesterday when I first drove into Natchez to meet with Joan Gandy who was then leading the newsroom and looking for someone to work as a photographer for the newspaper. That first meeting was nearly 23 years ago now. It didn’t take long for me to fall in love with Natchez and it’s amazing history, it’s warm and sometimes quirky people and it’s great sense of community.

Joan taught me much about Natchez and about newspapering and photography, but mostly she taught me about treating people in the community fairly.

Our staff misses Joan, as I’m sure many of our readers do as well. We are happy, however, that she’s doing God’s work, leading a church in Erwin, Tenn.

As another year is set to pass us by, I’m reminded that the world and time continue to tick by, seemingly at an ever-quickening pace.

One of the most read portions of our newspaper, the obituaries, reminds us almost daily of just how precious life can be and how quickly it can be lost.

Natchez has lost many, many good people over the last year.

Those who have left us include some notable firsts in our community. Elijah Johnson died at 87. While I never met the man, those who knew him said he was an amazingly kind man. He made his mark in Natchez’s history by being the first black deputy in the county since Reconstruction.

Norman Haigh Jr., 86, was a Korean War veteran and someone who had managed and developed much of what is now part of the St. Catherine Creek National Wildlife Refuge.

He was easily the most knowledgeable person I’d ever met regarding the outdoors. I first met Haigh when he took me and a young reporter on a tour of what was then Sibley Farms to show us the growing American bald eagle population. Haigh helped me see and photograph America’s national bird.

He also scared the heck out of me on that same visit while driving down one of the dirt roads on the property. He jammed on brakes, opened the door and leaned out to look at something.

“Panther tracks,” he said matter-of-factly before shutting the door and heading on our way.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Haigh was confirming what would later become a big argument in our area — do panthers really roam our woods?

Haigh certainly believed so and had confirmed sightings of them on the farm, and later as others suggested they spotted the big cats around Natchez, Haigh’s story resurfaced. I’ll never forget the kindness he showed to me and apparently to dozens of others he met during his life.

The year 2015 was, like many, filled with ups and downs, but mostly it was a good year.

 

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.