Each year around this time of year, as this paper’s newsroom staff reflects on the year that will soon end, we pause to remember those special people in our community who have passed during the year.
Taken as a whole, we have come to realize few of those people ever occupied positions of prominence or power. They are generally what you would consider to be “regular folks” — teachers, coaches, pastors, volunteers. They are not typically policy-makers or captains of industry, whose influence comes from a status that lifts them to a different strata.
Yet when they pass, their loss is felt keenly. Their contributions to our community are sometimes hard to categorize, to define, to quantify, yet when they leave us, the void they leave is unmistakable.
This year’s list, as it seems to be every year, is an eclectic one. No two seemed alike. Their contributions were unique, reaching deep into the community in ways that shape who we are as a whole.
It has long been noted that people make a house a home.
Likewise, it is people who make a town a hometown. They are the people who make a community, who give it humanity, who bind it together as one. Who make it the unique place it is.
They are the teachers and coaches whose influence goes far beyond the classrooms or playing fields. They are the “characters” whose warmth and personality lift our spirits.
While we do not diminish the value of those called into public service, it is often these unelected, un-appointed people who, seeing a need, simply move into that vacuum and fill it.
After all, there will always be a Mayor of Columbus, but there will never be another Mayor of Ninth Street like Jimmy Garton.
What can be said of Garton is true of everyone on the list, for the single thread that is woven through such a diverse group is the presence of a heart that, being simply too large to be contained, spills over into the community, where it enriches us all.
How can there ever be another Tom Wilburn? Harness racing legend, farmer and raconteur, Wilburn was one of those characters from the Prairie, the likes of which we won’t see again.
It is well that as a new year approaches we take a moment to pause and remember those who have left us this year, to reflect on their contributions and to be inspired to open our own hearts and hands in the year to come.
That, after all, is what a community is really all about.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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