Mark Twain once wrote, “let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry.”
It is that drive of life that made Twain such an iconic American and such a notable, and quotable, literary figure.
And from it, I have taken a similar philosophy when it comes to the art of the community newspaper.
This year has marked the 18th of my journalism career, not nearly a huge number in comparison to many others, but respectable nonetheless. And in that time, I have had the luxury to live and work in some fantastic places throughout the southeast.
One of those places is without a doubt, Selma.
My arrival this week is by no means my first assignment at The Selma Times-Journal. Many of you may remember my time here in the late 1990s as sports editor and news editor. Remarkably, many of you do remember and have called to say “welcome back.”
There are many of the same faces I remember from when I left in 2000 and many of the same stories we were covering a decade ago are still making news today.
Over my career, I have come to learn a number of important things about the role a community newspaper has in a community, some of which were taught to me here in Selma.
The first of which, and the most important, is that a newspaper cannot operate on an island. It must have community input in order to do its job effectively.
This is a newspaper that belongs to you, the reader. We simply have the great opportunity to produce it for you each day.
There will no doubt be times when you disagree with something we’ve written, a photo that was published or a position we take. I am not naive enough to think that we are going to make everyone happy every day. The four or five protestors that welcomed me on my first day are evidence of that.
But I will say this newsroom will be fair. They will be courteous and they will work hard.
Our job is to give you the very best newspaper each day that we possibly can and then work our tails off to do a better job the next day.
I am excited about this opportunity to come back to Selma and to work with some of the same great people I worked with over a decade ago.
So with this column today, I say to all of you, thanks for the warm reception and I look forward to getting down to work.

Tim Reeves is editor of the Selma Times-Journal. He can be contacted at tim.reeves@selmatimesjournal.com.