Publisher's Point Of View
Robert Allan Hooftallen

Even in the simple days of my not-so-distant past, I didn't sleep all that well.

In my family, that's a rarity. The other three people in my house sleep so well that even my sleepless activity doesn't stir them.

Sleeplessness can be an incredibly frustrating state, particularly if you are actually tired. But if you are of the sleepless breed, you either learn to make the best of it, make yourself more tired with exercise or drugs or lose yourself to madness.

Most often I choose to use the time to prepare for the responsibilities of the day ahead or to critique the actions of the day gone by.

If the alertness is going to put up more of a fight than I am willing to struggle against, I just get up and take my place in front of this machine. There's always something to do and I like to work no matter what time it is.

The time is now and this writing is a product of whatever causes me to be awake when most people are not.

Tonight is not an ordinary night, though, and my body's physical exhaustion is being trumped by my cerebral energy. This is not a typical Endeavor in either its looks or its content. The middle section is the Endeavor's deepest foray into covering and publishing news from Potter County.

We believe it makes good business sense to expand our coverage and we think hard work, combined with the enabling capabilities of communications technology, will enable us to do it well.

I'm not sure we could resist the temptation to expand there even if we didn't believe it would be best for the business.

Fate has reunited me with a longtime friend and colleague who was essentially the first person I admired for his approach to his vocation.

It was he who helped me understand that there's a difference between a job and a profession.

When I met Paul Heimel, he was a typical newspaper editor: overworked and underpaid. Yet he approached his "job" with passion. He saw community journalism then, and still does today, as a responsibility he is entrusted with.

What I saw in Paul was a man with a white collar profession and the abilities to match, but also a man who was equally saturated with blue collar grit, handed down through generations of honest, hard-working people.

In short order, I knew that's what I wanted: a job that enabled me to stay true to my blue collar roots, but one that also allowed me to think freely and use my God-given abilities. In 1992, it looked to me like that was exactly how Paul was living.

In the 15 years since, Paul and I have maintained a very good relationship, both on a personal and professional level, a healthy mix of work and play.

But, it's work that makes the relationship different. Because we have been given hearts that call us to work that has meaning to the people and places we love. And we have been gifted with the abilities to do that work.

It is written, "find what your hands do and do it with all your might..."

I catch myself telling Paul almost daily, "this is what we do, man."

What I mean to say is: this is what we've been called to do. And there's no fighting that.