We are here for the community plain and simple. It is the mission of any local newspaper and my personal goal as a journalist. 

Yes, there are days we have to write tough stories, report on death, destruction and the occasional government scandal. I would much rather be covering sports or writing stories about new businesses and the great people who make up this town but my job is to tell the whole story of this community.

We know in life, there are great days, bad days and those days which fall somewhere in between. 

In my teenage years, I thought the world was simply black and white. No in-between, no nuance.

Through maturity, experience and perspective, I see the world through a different lens. There is a lot of nuance and stories have more than one perspective or angle. 

My education and experience have prepared me to tell these stories to the fullest extent while handling the work professionally and ethically. 

It is why The Daily Leader covered Tuesday’s celebration of Troy Floyd’s life. We were not there to sensationalize the tragedy, nor inflict further pain on a grieving family. We were there because our community needed us to be there. 

The funeral, visitation and graveside services were places of mourning. Respectfully, I tried to give the family space at these while also documenting the wonderful tributes people made to a great man. I hope our readers and the community could see that in our reporting. 

I’m sure there are people out there who feel the newspaper or other media outlets have no business covering such stories. I would argue it is our business. We tell stories because they matter to our community. To me there was an added weight because I personally knew several of the first responders present Tuesday. 

Looking out across the church property, I saw countless people I knew including my volunteer firefighter family. While I wish I could have helped by directing traffic Tuesday, I hope I was able to help this community by telling the stories.