LUKE TAYLOR: All good things must come to an end

I’m a small town guy, and this summer, I got a chance to show it.

On Monday, I begin my final year of school at Missouri Southern State University, and my summer job at the Neosho Daily News will come to an end.

Working for the Daily News has been something I’ve wanted to do for a few years now, since about the time I started going to school at Crowder College.

Most of my friends look at this area of the United States and call it a “hole,” meaning they can’t get out of here. Their life goals always involve moving as soon as possible, whether it be just to Springfield or a major city like Los Angeles.

I respect that, but I have no aspirations to move away anytime soon. Like I said, I enjoy small towns, and I like being in a place where I feel like I know everybody.

And I really thought I knew everybody, too, until I started working for the Daily News and realized how much more there is to offer in this area of the country than I even knew about.

For example, I always knew about the Battle of Newtonia, but I didn’t realize what an impact it made in the Civil War. I hope it can become a national park soon.

Another area I plan to visit later this year is the Granby Miners Museum. I stepped inside there to stay out of the rain one time a few weeks ago, but I didn’t realize until after I’d left that the most interesting part the museum was underground.

I wouldn’t have learned of these places if I didn’t have the opportunity to work at the Daily News this summer. One of the reasons I’ve wanted to work for the Daily News the past few years is that I see the value of a small-town newspaper.

Nobody quite knows the future of newspapers, as many have deemed them “obsolete” throughout the past decade and turned to faster ways of learning information. True, the newspaper industry as a whole is evolving, but for Neosho-sized towns across the country, where else are people going to go to find local news if it’s not a small-town newspaper?

There will always be television stations reporting on local news as well, but you can’t hold television news in your hands and read it at your leisure. Your grandma can’t clip out a television report and hang it on her refrigerator.

That’s the way small town newspapers work, though, and that’s why I’m the kind of guy who appreciates them. I hope that as technology advances and new forms of communication are discovered, the local newspaper is always a part of our lives.

Here were some highlights from my summer:

• Attending the Pride in the Cage II cage fight at the Civic in Neosho last weekend is the first that comes to mind. I’ve never been a wrestling fan or a viewer of combat sports, and I didn’t think I would enjoy covering the event. It turned out to actually be a lot of fun and I hope there is another next year.

• Taking a photo of a car show from the top of the old Newton Hotel on the Neosho historic downtown square. I’m still afraid of heights, though.

• The endless stories told about managing editor John Ford while he was away for most of the summer. My only regret about working at the Daily News is that I was called in to help out in John’s absence. From the constant stories told about John, I could tell he was deeply missed by his coworkers here. He wasn’t just missed at the Daily News; countless times while introducing myself to people, they would immediately ask how John was doing.

• Interviewing a Diamond couple for their 75th wedding anniversary. I especially liked to hear them talk about the changes they’ve seen in their lives, and they both were a shining example of long-term commitment in a marriage. It’s the kind of story that you don’t read in a major newspaper, but one that’s still worth telling.

Luke Taylor served as the Daily News’ college intern this summer.