Going out on a high note ...

Several people have asked me about the Tennessee Press Association awards that Amy and I attended in Nashville last month, and I promised to detail it all in a blog. But, of course, I let life get in the way.

OK, OK, I've finally got around to it.

The 2011 awards ceremony was my last with The Erwin Record -- the awards are for work completed the previous year.

Well, I'm glad to say I was able to leave The Erwin Record on a high note, as the newspaper, once again, won the General Excellence/Sweepstakes Award. This was the ninth year in a row. Eight was a state record, so it was nice to continue an unprecedented streak. That feels good.

Now I'll never know if I could have continued to lead the newspaper to the top award year after year. I have to say, though, that it's good to go out on top. I always said, "Well, it's been great even if we can't win it again." I never wanted to experience that, of course. So ... now I won't have to do so. Ahh, feels good!

Personally, I won several awards, so I'll detail those below with a few comments from the judges. ...

FIRST PLACE, BEST SINGLE EDITORIAL ... for my editorial about the many public officials or public employees who have stolen money from the taxpayers. It was titled "Higher Taxes, Fewer Services? Yes, Thank the Thieves of Unicoi County." From the judge: "Very well written and reported and does a good job of appealing to readers by addressing them, and their tax dollars, directly."

-- FIRST PLACE, BEST PERSONAL HUMOR COLUMN ... for my column titled "Christmas Shines With 'Bamberella'." From the judge: "Clever and funny, with a homey touch. Made me laugh out loud."

-- THIRD PLACE, BEST PERSONAL HUMOR COLUMN ... for my column titled "I've Been Driven to Distraction." 

-- THIRD PLACE, BEST PERSONAL COLUMN ... for my column about Judy Moss after she lost her husband, Dick. From the judge: "This category had more than its share of stories about grief and loss, and this was the most poignant and well-written. It drew the reader in while avoiding emotional cliches."

SECOND PLACE, EDITORIALS ... From the judge: "Very well-written editorials in each case. Writing is concise, uses facts well to back up main points and doesn't waste reader's time."

-- SECOND PLACE, BEST NEWS PHOTOGRAPH ... for a shot of Angie Williams as her lawyer pointed the way to exit the courtroom as she pleaded not guilty to stealing $21,000 from the Unicoi County School System. From the judge: "Great photo! The best. You have to wait for the right moment and keep eye for detail, and that's exactly what this photo shows."

-- SECOND PLACE, BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING ... for a series of stories detailing ethics meetings between the sheriff and county commissioners. (I shared this award with Rebekah Harris and Brandon Kane.) From the judge: "Exhaustive work ... It's evident your news staff is plugged into the beat."

-- THIRD PLACE, BEST INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING ... for a series of stories detailing production problems at Nuclear Fuel Services. From the judge: "Thorough coverage of an important local news story."

-- FOURTH PLACE, BEST SINGLE EDITORIAL. ... for my editorial noting the Chamber of Commerce was being overshadowed by the town of Unicoi's efforts at community outreach. From the judge: "Well done and full of strong details to support your conclusions."

... I liked that my final year at the Record, I was still involved in all aspects of the newspaper's operations, as the awards show. I wrote all the editorials, in addition to my personal column, but I was, as always, involved in reporting and photography. I took my job very seriously, and, in hindsight, I'm surprised how much I was able to accomplish.

I pushed myself, because I felt I would let the community down if I didn't work as hard as I could. That might mean making sure paper boxes were always full and working, writing a story, meeting with a concerned reader or being part of community events. Erwin was a great place to be, but, man, sometimes I wonder how I didn't fall over from exhaustion. Must have been the adrenaline!

Snapshots in time

It's been a long time without a blog from me. I'm bad. I know.

I've discovered something I should have known all along. I need a deadline to make things work.

For years, I wrote a personal column for The Erwin Record every week. I had enough to fill up a book, but if I hadn't had that weekly deadline, I doubt I would have had a dozen columns completed.

I almost always wrote my columns on Sunday, even though that meant I added another day to the work week. But I couldn't write them on other days of the week. I needed that deadline.

It seems the same is true for my blogging. Nothing forces me to write, so I find that I opt not to do so.

I do write a column for The Daily Advertiser, but it's not a weekly column. I write a column whenever the mood strikes -- or, really, when I've come across someone I think makes an interesting topic.

About a month ago, I went to visit a wonderful woman named Beryl Anderson, and she ended up being the topic of my latest column. Amy and I were even invited to her 90th birthday party Saturday.

So ... I thought I'd share that column here on my blog. ...

Beryl Anderson celebrated her 90^th birthday Thursday. And tomorrow, she’ll gather with family and friends to commemorate the happy occasion.

There’ll undoubtedly be plenty of photos taken throughout Beryl’s special day – and that’s a fitting tribute to this longtime Lafayette resident.

Preserving memories through a camera’s lens has been a lifelong passion for Beryl. She’s never been a professional photographer – just, she says, good enough to capture fleeting moments in time.

The mother of four, grandmother of eight and great-grandmother of 14 has been on a mission over the past few months – collecting those photos to divide between her children and grandchildren.

“Well,” Beryl says with a sly little grin, “I’m not getting any younger, you know.”

She has boxes and boxes of photos – a lifetime’s worth, really. Some photos are in albums that once belonged to her mother. Some were shot when she rode across the country in an RV, first with her husband, Harry Anderson, who died in December 1990, and later with her friend, Gerry Champagne.

An easygoing nature – and her camera’s focus – provided Beryl with plenty of adventure over the years. When she’d be headed out on a trip in the RV, maybe to Canada or Las Vegas or Florida, her family would ask, “When will you be back?"

They'd often get the same enigmatic answer.

“I know when I'm leaving,” Beryl would say, “but I don't know when I'll be back.”

She wasn't always so carefree.

"I was shy as a young person," she says, sitting at her kitchen table shuffling through her treasured photographs.

Unlike that shy girl staring back in a black-and-white photograph on the table, Beryl is, today, quick to offer advice.

"You're young, so I'm going to tell you," she says. "Always write on the back of pictures - always."

Otherwise, Beryl says, you might find yourself unsure about a photo's origins. For example, a photo in her collection shows a men's baseball team wearing "Purina Chicks" uniforms.

"That's one that set me off the other day," she says, her South Louisiana accent punctuating her words. "I don't know who they are. It may have been in my mother's photos. Maybe my husband's. Some of them look familiar. I just don't know.

"Finding this picture with nothing written on the back, well, that threw me."

She’s not perplexed by most of her photos -- some she’s taken, some she inherited. Reaching across her kitchen table, she picks up photo after photo and remembers.

"This is my mother before she was married in 1917. ..."

"This is the Patterson, La., baseball team. ..."

"This is the Lemmon brothers. One was a Sidney. One was a Harold. ..."

"This is my dad. This is a cousin. These are my aunts and uncles going to the beach on a Sunday afternoon. ..."

"Here look at this, that's my daddy and his friends holding up a Ouija Board. They would play charades and all kinds of things. ... "

"That's me, around age 3 or 4, sitting in a park in Franklin. The park isn't there anymore. I learned to roller-skate holding onto the hedge. I'm dressed in a Mardi Gras outfit. It's red tulle. ..."

On and on, the memories go. Beryl's photos capture the moments of her life, and she's determined to pull them all together and hand them out, so that others might find enjoyment and fulfillment from the glimpses into a life well lived.

“I used to be a very avid picture-taker,” she says. “At one point, I was doing slides. I haven't quite figured out how to reproduce my slides. I bought a little machine, but I can't quite get the hang of it. All my first pictures as an adult were slides."

Many of the photos are family heirlooms, passed down to Beryl from generations before. But because Beryl has had a lifelong love affair with pictures, her own focus has added many to the mix.

"My very first pictures were little tiny pictures. I had a little camera that took little bitty pictures," Beryl says with a schoolgirl's enthusiasm. "It took small pictures. I don't even remember the name of it. I did something in a magazine, and I won that camera. I was a teenager.

"I still had it when I met my husband in 1937, and I was still taking pictures with it. I took little tiny pictures with it. And I always wanted a picture. I had fun with it. I took pictures of all my friends. That would have in 1935 or 1936."

She doesn't know what happened to that tiny camera, but her love of photography, which she calls “magical,” has remained strong throughout her life.

Some friends once chided her for taking so many photographs. "You know I got a nick-name," Beryl says. "You remember 'Candid Camera'? The host was Allen Funt. People started saying, 'Oh here comes Mrs. Funt and her camera.’ ”

But that's OK. Because of her efforts, she's got hundreds of photos - and, more importantly, the memories conjured up by those well-preserved moments in time.

"I took all those pictures so I could remember the occasions and everybody else,” Beryl says, letting special moments of fishing trips to Grand Isle, football games in New Orleans and more than 56,000 miles traveling the country in her RV filter through her life’s lens. “I took a lot of these pictures, so they’re all memories for me.

“I didn't have to be in the pictures. I captured the moment.”

All those good times – the graduations, the weddings and, yes, the birthdays – live on in film thanks to Beryl’s clear focus and her boundless love.

Over the years, Beryl has had a simple request for the subjects on the other side of her camera lens. And today, that one-word request is her lasting reward.

Smile.