The Southern Sentinel won 15awards at the Mississippi Press Association luncheon held Saturday, June 26 in Tunica.

The Sentinel competes in the weekly and twice-weekly division. There was stiff competition; 43 weekly newspapers submitted 1,236 entries.

This year’s awards represent a cross section of what a quality newspaper should be: writing, photography and design.

For the third consecutive year, the newspaper was recognized for general excellence.

As Yogi Berra said one day as he was being honored for his baseball career, "I'd like to thank everyone who made this day necessary."

To paraphrase Yogi, I want to thank everyone who made this column necessary.

Here at the Sentinel, we appreciate the awards. Most folks like to be told they've done a good job. The principle applies whether it's a reader saying something to us on the court square, or others in our profession recognizing us at the Press Association convention.

Newspapering is a team sport. These people I'm about to mention didn't receive any awards, but they ought to. Without them we wouldn't have won any awards. In fact, we wouldn't even have jobs.

Among those on the team who deserve recognition:

--The people in this area: A reporter whom nobody talks to is soon out of business. I literally wouldn't be able to do my job without the help of people from all walks of life who take time to talk, to explain, to answer the endless questions that are a reporter's stock in trade. To each of you, thank you for helping me do my job.

--Our readers: Without them none of us would have jobs. Sometimes we please them, sometimes we make them mad, and they call or come by with their hair on fire, or fire off rockets via e-mails.

Regardless, they support us with their money. In turn, we give them our best efforts with each issue, and hope they view those efforts as an acceptable minimum. For over 132 years at the Southern Sentinel, they have.

--Fellow employees: The publisher gave us our jobs. None of us could do those jobs without help from a lot of our co-workers. Newspapering today, even on the community journalism level where we work, involves a lot of specialization.

We can write stories, but we depend on someone else to sell advertising to generate a revenue stream, keep up with billing and collections, get the newspaper printed and distributed. Without help from those people, we would be writing the greatest stories never told.

--Our families: We put in a lot of time beyond regular working hours on this job. Although I'm told that we're one of the better newspapers in our group at working smarter, not longer, extra work goes with the territory.

That time spent working is time we're not doing other things, having a life outside the newspaper, spending quality time with those we care about.

When I'm home, I'm often poking words into a word processor. My family then has my presence, but not my companionship.

It takes a particularly understanding and independent wife to put up with this. My wife provides me with a stable home life so I can concentrate on what I do, and looks after things while I'm gone. Without her, I couldn't do what I do. Words can't fully express my appreciation to her.

. Doing what I do takes me away from doing many other things in my personal life I'd rather have been doing. It does the same thing to most other people on staff here. Doing what I do has taken uncounted numbers of my nights and weekends, and has cost me some vacations. That's one of the pricetags of reporting done well.

Our special series of articles on specific topics have won awards for years. They’ve ranged from elections to histories of the area, domestic violence, overcoming adversity, local veterans of America’s wars, odd jobs, hobbies, up and coming leaders of tomorrow, and features on where folks who left this area years ago are and what they’re doing.

On "big papers" they often turn a reporter loose from all his other duties to do a series. There isn't that luxury on smaller newspapers. A series or special section assignment becomes "in addition to," and not "instead of."

Are our efforts worth the result?

Is the gain worth the pain?

That's for you, the reader, to decide, because, after all, what we do, we do for you…