For all the teachers and educators in this county who work hard every day to make a difference in children’s lives, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you.

Reading is a fundamental skill that isn’t easy for all children to acquire. We celebrate those efforts and that skill during Literacy Week.

As you will read in this week’s edition, county officials started out the year with some fireworks.

The fallout from the firing of attorney Roy Andrews late last year continues to be a hot topic with some county officials, while others seem ready to move on.

I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays. I feel like I more than made up for being on vacation for two weeks in 2019 over Christmas and New Year’s.

The office renovations have been slower than expected but apparently from what I’m told, that is to be expected.

I started writing my column about the lessons I’ve learned from cleaning out my office, including filing cabinets after 20 years of accumulating “stuff,” but I’ve decided that will be more appropriate for the new year.

Let’s just say halfway through I thought about calling the whole thing off.