By Don Coble, Senior Reporter<\/p>\n
\u00a0I tried retirement. It lasted about six months. When I got the opportunity to get back into the newspaper business at Clay Today, I jumped on it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Turns out, it was the best \u2013 and one of the most challenging \u2013 things\u00a0I\u2019ve\u00a0ever done.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When I got to Clay County, I\u00a0didn\u2019t\u00a0know anyone. Even worse,\u00a0I found a lot of people\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0too receptive to me\u00a0because of my connection with Clay Today.\u00a0I quickly realized I was starting with a black slate, but I was willing to do the work\u00a0to turn things around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve\u00a0always believed that a community newspaper thrives by being part of the community. I\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0know the details, and quite frankly, they\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0apply to me, but things\u00a0weren\u2019t\u00a0remarkably smooth between\u00a0many\u00a0corners of the community and this outlet.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I decided not to change anyone\u2019s\u00a0perception\u00a0with words, but with action. How many times have our parents told us that actions speak louder than words?\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first six months were\u00a0difficult\u00a0because it was a struggle to find stories. It was hard enough because I was still learning the lay of the land, but very few were reaching out. But I never gave up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
SafetyNet was a great start. It got my foot in the door, especially with nonprofits and government groups.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0where I started to mend a very fractured relationship between the sheriff\u2019s office,\u00a0the former\u00a0sheriff\u00a0and this newspaper. Again, not clear on the details, but you must\u00a0maintain\u00a0a professional and honest working relationship with everyone. They\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0have to like\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0being written,\u00a0as long as\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0true and not personal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When then-publisher Jon Cantrell and owner Hugh Osteen agreed to hire me, I thought\u00a0I\u2019d\u00a0work another two years, then spend the rest of my time wiggling my toes on the beach. That was six\u00a0and a half\u00a0years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now,\u00a0I have no plans to retire.\u00a0A big reason for that is\u00a0Kyla. She\u00a0has pumped a new life into my career.\u00a0She\u2019s\u00a0shown me a new way to look at things. I may be 68, but I still have juice.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Unlike six years ago,\u00a0we\u2019ve\u00a0built something special here. Instead of scrambling for stories, now\u00a0we\u2019re\u00a0on the constant run to keep up with stories.\u00a0We\u2019ve\u00a0become\u00a0victims\u00a0of our own progress.\u00a0Believe me,\u00a0that\u2019s\u00a0not a complaint.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There are so many\u00a0great things\u00a0happening in this county,\u00a0and we want to tell those stories. Years ago, we had to run around on\u00a0deadline\u00a0to look for stories to fill holes. Now we\u00a0must\u00a0decide which Clay Today-written\u00a0stories make the print and online\u00a0versions,\u00a0and which only make the online\u00a0version because we have too much copy.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The credit goes to our\u00a0readers. You\u00a0don\u2019t\u00a0always agree with\u00a0what\u2019s\u00a0written, but you read.\u00a0And you respond, which keeps this 68-year-old guy on the move.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Don Coble, Senior Reporter \u00a0I tried retirement. It lasted about six months. When I got the opportunity…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":394232,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,15024,15015,15023,15026,3188,15016,723,15021,7310,15020,15022,7648,15018,15017,15025,15019,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-394231","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-argyle","10":"tag-clay-county","11":"tag-doctors-inlet","12":"tag-eagle-harbor","13":"tag-fl","14":"tag-fleming-island","15":"tag-florida","16":"tag-green-cove-springs","17":"tag-jacksonville","18":"tag-keystone-heights","19":"tag-lake-asbury","20":"tag-margaret","21":"tag-middleburg","22":"tag-orange-park","23":"tag-pace-island","24":"tag-penney-farms","25":"tag-united-states","26":"tag-united-states-of-america","27":"tag-unitedstates","28":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115586747892309224","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394231"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394231\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394231"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394231"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}