By By Lee Weyhrich
In everyday life, things don't always go as planned. The newspaper business is no different.
You may want this story or that photo, but sometimes it doesn't always work out.
This year's Horizons edition has been a huge task for the Advance's staff. Late nights, lots of caffeine and pure adrenaline has kept us pumping out stories, snapping photos and sending pages to the press. It's a miracle one of us hasn't fallen asleep at our desk.
As with most huge projects, it takes a lot of dedication and hard work to produce a product to be proud of. So delays are always expected.
The Advance is printed in Andalusia at the Andalusia Star News, which prints several affiliate papers. With so many staffing changes, a decision was made to bump the annual February edition to March. It was the best decision made, but it has the print staff in Andalusia working double time.
The reason for all the hustle and bustle in Andalusia is that they run their Horizon's edition each year in March. The reasoning behind this is to get all their affiliates' "progress" edition printed in January and February, so they can focus solely on the Stars' Horizons. This year has been a bit different.
Besides printing thousands of pages each week for all the other papers who rely on them for printing, Andalusia is also printing its Horizons and the Advances, along with a few other papers that had to hold off for various reasons. With all the extra work, the print staff said it would take a huge strain off them if the Advance would publish on March 23.
To be honest, the staff was kind of relieved because Horizons is so complex and requires so much workload; it gave us a couple extra days to finish up.
Since you, the reader, has to wait a couple more days for the anticipated edition to hit the newsstands, here's a brief overview of what's to expect. This year's Horizons will consist of six sections, A Day in the Life, Recreation, Health and Fitness, Community and Education, Business and Industries and Civic Organizations; two tabloid supplements; a special print insert and advertisements from our local businesses and organizations. There's also a few other surprises, but we can't give away all our secrets.
So please understand the delay, it will be well worth it. As for our advertisers, thanks for supporting this special edition, you won't be disappointed.
Adam Prestridge is the Publisher of the Atmore Advance. His column appears weekly.