The big ‘O’ is outta here

For the past four years, all of us have been treated to the fanciful wordplay and engaging storytelling of Marion native Oliver Good, who parlayed being hired into a vague position that would help out in many areas at our papers into an opportunity to refine his craft as a writer.

Today is Oliver’s last day. After juggling family, work, and his love for music to also fit in graduate classes in education this summer, he’s leaving to become a language arts and speech teacher at Smoky Valley High School in Lindsborg.

In a couple of weeks, we’ll be introducing new staffers whose bylines we hope will become as familiar and welcome as Oliver’s, but before we do, we want — not only as an editor but also as a reader — to thank him for the many unforgettable stories he’s shared with us.

Yes, we’re in the business of selling newspapers, but what really drives people like Oliver or his colleagues Rowena Plett, David Colburn, Phyllis Zorn, and the two bright young faces soon to arrive is taking you on an engaging journey each week through the diversity of human comedies and dramas that represent what it means to be a Marion County resident.

News isn’t always of our choosing, but the motivation for telling it is always the same: giving you something to laugh or shed a tear about, something that makes you better relate to your neighbors or encourages you to reward a good deed or right a wrong.

Oliver has done more than his fair share of that over the past four years, and we can only hope that he will have an equally positive impact on students in Lindsborg.

We wish him well.

— ERIC MEYER