As many of you know, due to your newspaper being delivered at odd times last week, we had some mechanical and electrical problems with our printing press.

Thanks for your calls to our office and thanks for your patience. Our goal is to deliver your newspaper to you on a timely basis every time. Unfortunately, we were not always able to meet that goal last week. For that, we apologize.

Thank you for your understanding and patience. We had a couple of visitors from a sister newspaper in Alabama in our office last week. Both of these fine ladies were helping by answering the phone and explaining that the newspapers would be late, but we would get them on the street as soon as possible. Peggy Kelley, one of the visitors, mentioned that she would come here anytime a problem arose because the readers and callers were so nice and understanding when they called asking about their newspaper. That speaks volumes about the communities that we live in.

A newspaper press is a wonderful thing. If you have never seen one, I invite you stop by and I will explain how it works. A newspaper press can also be very temperamental and when they turn, sometimes they turn with a vengeance. Ours turned with a vengeance last week.

We had a repairman here from Richmond early Sunday morning and late Tuesday afternoon, he had the press repaired and running again. Your newspapers were printed by a group of fine folks in Roanoke Rapids at the Daily Herald while our press was under repair. Thanks to Ronnie Bell and his staff for helping us out in a tough situation. The Goldsboro News-Argus also helped us by offering their printing services. People involved in the newspaper business are in a type of fraternity and we typically take of each other. This case was no exception.

During the downtime, we had some very loyal and determined employees here, helping any way that they could and doing jobs that they don’t normally do. I want to thank all the employees of the News-Herald and the Gates County Index for their efforts in the time that we were down. I want to thank our contracted carriers for getting the newspapers out at times that they normally don’t deliver. And I especially want to thank you, our readers and customers, for showing patience while we corrected the problem with our printing press. I am not foolish enough to say that it will never happen again, but hopefully, we will all respond the same way.