Hello Forest Lake.
What a pleasure it has been the last few weeks meeting so many of you and hearing your stories. My name is Paul Jackson and as of July 1, 2022, I have been entrusted with the future of The Lake News (Read more of how this happened in the story here.
As I have spoken with readers of The Lake News over the last couple of months, one of the most repeated comments has been about how much people have valued Susannah’s ‘Personally Speaking’ column. I have big shoes to fill and I hope you can bear with me as I find my feet and my voice in this column.
My journey into publishing has been shaped by The Lake News founders, Chris and Betty Wren. In light of this I hope you will find my voice and heart familiar. One of the things that I caught from Chris early was the desire to publish good news for the community we love. This resonated strongly with me.
I think it is true that what we focus on increases. At the very least it increases its influence in our lives and begins to shape and define us. If we focus on problems or conflict or differences, they will likely increase in our estimation. But if we focus on solutions and look for the best in the people around us that will likely increase in our estimation.
A friend once told me, “It doesn’t take a genius to find dirt. The real skill in life is to find the gold.” That is why we, like Chris and Betty, have intentionally decided to use our publications to celebrate what we want to see more of in our communities and to spend our time digging for the gold rather than complaining about the things we don’t like.
It is with this in mind that we created the tagline for The Lake News – Celebrating the people, places and events that make Forest Lake a great place to live.
Over the next few months I want to use this column to break down the importance of each part of this statement as it describes the kind of flourishing community that Forest Lake exemplifies.
I hope you’ll join me for the journey.
