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On Friday, May 15, the clock will stop on my time here at The Clanton Advertiser.

Having accepted a position elsewhere in the state, I will be moving on.

I have spent the last two years and two months as the managing editor here, and I certainly enjoyed the time spent helping bring news coverage to the residents of Chilton County.

One of the first events, I covered was at Senior Connection in Clanton. I had no idea what to expect when I went, as I had never covered a place quite like it.

Fast forward two years and it feels like a building full of surrogate grandmothers who feed me on occasion.

It’s a great resource for the 55 and up crowd here in the county to have.

It’s also been a pleasure working with people like Sheriff John Shearon, who always went out of his way to get any information I requested. He and other members of local law enforcement, like Assistant Chief Deputy Shane Mayfield with Chilton County Sheriff’s Office and Capt. David Clackley with Clanton Police Department, have been a big help in my crime reporting.

While I may be managing editor in Clanton, my background is in sports coverage, and I will sure miss watching the high schools in the county battle it out on the gridiron on Friday nights in the fall.

Getting to watch Isabella at Maplesville last year from the sideline inside a packed stadium was a real treat. Sports writer Anthony Richards and I were just as excited for that game as any of the fans, because we knew what it meant and that it would deliver no matter which team won.

Being in journalism, even in a small town, means coming across stories that are out of the ordinary.

Since coming to Clanton, I have written about such varied topics as an escaped emu from a local animal farm, an 89-year-old woman being jailed for a city ordinance violation right before Christmas, a helicopter crash and how a lone deer tried to kill the local recycling program.

My time here has been fun, and I will certainly miss it. I will miss working with all the coworkers I’ve had over this time.

I will also miss all the great unique local restaurants that kept me fed.

Now, if only I could find a way to talk Heard’s BBQ and Soul Food in Maplesville into franchising out to the new city I end up in …