So that’s why we opened

A couple weeks ago I wrote about my perspective on 2022. It was supposed to be part of a series, because, well, I like to write. 

I’m awful at continuing columns when I say I’m going to. There’s just so much to write about in any given week that I tend to focus on what’s happening currently, rather than how things were a year ago. 

That said, I think, even though the Pioneer didn’t begin publishing until July, that continuing the series is still relevant to the Pioneer. For those who want to avoid the NRHEG side of this, jump to the second bolded line. That part does pertain to today. 

March 2022

This month included the end of the winter sports seasons. I remember these rather vividly. I remember waiting almost an hour to talk to Isaiah Lundberg after the NRHEG boys basketball team lost to Waseca in the first round of the playoffs. That was a difficult conversation. Endings are never easy and it ended up being Isaiah’s last game as head coach. I remember asking him if he would be back to coach again, mainly because I wanted to see him back. He told me he would be and I later found out that a coach should never answer that question in an emotional state, for example, at the end of a season.

At the same time, I remember snapping a photo of Tom and Perry Peterson hugging. Tom was one of my coaches growing up, and I graduated with his son Palmer. We chatted for a while that night. He and his wife were talking about adopting another child. Perry was the final Peterson to play sports, so this was the final time for Tom as a parent fan. (The Peterson clan tallies almost a dozen.) The last game for Perry was also the last time Tom would get to watch one of his children play high school athletics. It was an emotional moment, and I snapped a photo of it.

Looking at that photo again brings all of these memories flooding back and reminds me of the importance of the work we do at the paper. Several times throughout 2022, I asked myself if I should be taking photos of such emotional, touching moments. Yes, I think I should. Not necessarily every time, but to get a good photo, a thought provoking, memory inducing photo, a person, a reporter, should just keep snapping.

I remember getting a nice thank you note from the Peterson family regarding a different article I later wrote about the basketball season. Also, they shared the news page on Facebook and received a lot of positive feedback. In a column I chose not to print, because it was kind of a mess, I wrote about how much feedback helps us at the paper. Positive and negative.

I wasn’t sure if I should have taken that picture of Tom and Perry, but then they reassured me with a “Thank you,” and a, “Great photo,” comment.

Oh, and the NRHEG girls basketball season ended. I talked with then senior Sophie Stork on the court in Mankato after the girls lost in the sub-section championship game. Right before we were done, I was reminded of something I was told following my final game. She and many girls were crying, but Sophie, a real trooper, still talked with me and opened up about the season, and her final high school basketball game.

Anyway, before we were done, on a whim, I told her what I was told after I played my final baseball game senior year. “If this is your saddest moment, think about how blessed your life is.”

Hearing that quote really helped me during my senior year. It really, really hurts to play your final game.

When I told Sophie, she smiled and I was again grateful for my profession, grateful for the opportunity to ride along for the season.

The final week of March was very eventful.

My cousins won farm family of the year in Waseca County. That was really cool. I wrote 12,000 words, including five articles. One on each family, one on the event, and another on their “Gifts of Grain” program offered by the Waseca Area Foundation. In that same week, I wrote five or six articles on the end of the winter sports season, one of our special sections. I literally wrote from dawn to dusk, beginning on a Saturday morning and ending late on a Sunday night. I think I wrote the equivalent of an entire book in those two days. My only regret is I wish I had more time for editing. 

Melanie, our news editor in New Richland caught, well, I think everything. But I didn’t read them again after she was done. I just remember saying a prayer and hoping she could fix all my typos, because it was literally a book.

So how does this pertain to today? To the Pioneer?

This was the weekend that really convinced me that I wanted to start a newspaper in Waseca. The Waseca County News reprinted the pamphlet from the Farm and City Luncheon and ran a photo taken using a cell phone. That was the extent of their coverage. I, on the other hand, had written 12,000 words about the people, their accomplishments, and their contributions to the community. 

In the same week, the County News ran a “sports preview” that didn’t include a single article about the teams in Waseca County or a photo of any of the dozen or more sets of athletes. To be frank, I was disgusted. I slammed their newspaper down and said, “That’s it, Waseca deserves better!” That was one of several (in)famous rants I went on in 2022 regarding news coverage in Waseca. 

Since then, I learned that, at the time, the County News was in the middle of a four-month stretch without a staff writer. A lot happens in four months. Including the idea, motivation, and first steps of a new newspaper. 

We’re far from perfect at the Pioneer, but I know as long as I can do my job, we’ll continue to get better. To be honest, we’ll never be as good as I want us to be. There really just aren’t enough people and time to write and share the innumerable stories I would like. 

So that was March.

I don’t know if this is going to be a 12-part series, but if it is, I’m two parts down.

Thanks for staying with us, with me, with the Pioneer for another year.

“Before I do anything, I ask myself ‘Would an idiot do that?’ If the answer is yes, I do not do that thing.” - Dwight Schrute, The Office.