For the folks like myself, the ones who have the privilege of working to produce your news each day, today is special because our annual Progress edition is now available on our website. For us, knowing this publication is available to readers is the culmination of much work.

Progress is our most significant publication each year, and because of that, we wanted the depth and scope of the reporting this year to reflect its importance.

So, instead of looking at Progress as a collection of stories that could have appeared in any edition of the newspaper or Peach Living magazine, we made an effort to produce a different type of story for Progress. We developed a theme for the publication, “Tomorrow Began with Yesterday: Chilton County’s future in the context of its past.”

The end results are pieces that are broad (looking at all the issues facing Chilton County schools or an overview of the local economy), heartwarming (two ladies who recently turned 100 years young talking about how the county has changed), timely (an update on the situation at Chilton Medical Center) and timeless (the legacy left behind by Dearl Hilyer, the Thorsby mayor who tragically passed just as he was doing his best work for the town).

We hope you enjoy reading these stories, and we also hope they go beyond a nice read to something more, something that helps define Chilton County. When we know where we stand currently and where we’ve been, it will be easier to determine where we are going.

Progress can be seen here. Also, printed copies are available at the Advertiser’s office. We all hope you enjoy reading it as much as we enjoyed working on it.

Stephen Dawkins is managing editor for The Clanton Advertiser. He can be reached at stephen.dawkins@clantonadvertiser.com.