Lonnie ADAMSON
Managing Editor

That fact comes true of my time living and working in Elkin and the Yadkin Valley this week. These last three and a half years have been among the best in my life.

On Monday I will begin a new job in Ashe County as editor/general manager of the Jefferson Post. It is a promotion for me and will give me the opportunity to learn about managing all aspects of publishing.

My first column on this page recounted an experience on my first day in town. I blew into town on the winds of Hurricane Ivan in September of 2004. The ground was sodden outside my Bridge Street aparment building and my truck and the trailer it pulled got stuck in the front yard.

As the tires spun and the trailer sliped sideways, a man, who did not have full use of one arm, stopped in the middle of the road and helped me push the truck to firmer ground. I saw that as a good omen.

Throughout my time in Elkin I have found people willing to help and concerned about their neighbors.

For me the good graces continued in the form of David McCollum, who spotted me standing next to my broken-down pickup truck along I-77 in Charlotte.

He went down the road, and came back to give me a ride back to Elkin.

David is choir director at Elkin's First Baptist Church, a congregation that has been extra good to me over the years. It is there that I met Mack and Avis Hendrick, who took me in on holidays as one of their own family. There is no finer family than the Hendrick clan.

I will stop there naming names. There are dozens of others who have helped me along the way. Beyond the good that this community has done for me, I am heartened and inspired by the community's habit of looking after its neighbors.

In my reporting duties, I have seen many tragedies. And I have seen the community respond to families that have lost loved ones in wrecks and suffered myriad other losses.

That is the thing I like best about Elkin and the entire Yadkin Valley.

The folks in Yadkin County, where I served as editor, are different from folks in Elkin. But they are no less caring and concerned for their neighbors.

This community has allowed me to be a part of it, has welcomed me as a part of it.

That's not something that can be said of every community.

I am very thankful to managers and staff at the Tribune and Ripple for helping me to get to this place.

They care about this community also. They intend to provide you with the information and advertising services that the community needs. They are dedicated. Publisher Ty Ransdell is as genuine and concerned a newspaper manager as I have known. He will look after this operation and serve the community well.

Lonnie Adamson is leaving his position as Managing Editor of the Tribune, Yadkin Ripple and On The Vine.