It takes all of us ...

As promised, this is my annual thank-you column — a small thing for the humongous amount of help offered by our local churches in sending their news throughout the year.

Many of you may not be aware that 99 percent of all the church news you see on The Citizen’s religion pages is written and sent by the churches. I take editorial and rewriting liberties, which is my job, but the news comes from you. And I am more appreciative for your help than you will ever know.

Even though most of the contacts have been through email, I feel as if I have gotten to know many of you personally, although we have never set eyes on each other. Sometimes the emails are like casual banter between friends. We joke and say funny things ... make fun of our errors (Christ Our Shepherd is located where, David?) ... occasionally get frustrated when things don’t go just right ... but, for the most part, you help me and I help you.

There are some I’ve corresponded with for years and some I hardly know, but we all work together to promote your church activities and make The Citizen’s religion pages the best in the area.

In addition to all the religion news, I also do weddings, engagements, anniversaries and births, so I deal with fretful moms and nervous brides, trying to keep their announcements dignified, correct, and worthy of being family keepsakes for years to come.

All of these announcements are absolutely free, subject to our guidelines, compliments of The Citizen.

I also want to thank our columnists, David Chancey, Justin Kollmeyer, Paul Massey and Sally Oakes, for providing us with inspirational and thought-provoking columns each week.

I have often said that news writing is relatively easy because you write from notes. Column-writing is another thing entirely because it comes out of your head. Thinking up a topic is sometimes the hardest part of all. But they do it every week without fail.

I’m not going to mention any church publicity people because I don’t want to risk leaving someone out. But you know who you are. Take your thanks from me with my grateful appreciation.

I also would like to mention how you can get your church news into The Citizen’s religion pages.

First, the deadline is Monday at noon for all church, engagement, wedding, anniversary, and birth announcements. Everything runs on a space available basis with newsworthy, time-sensitive events taking priority. Sending your news a couple or three weeks ahead of time really helps me out and I can pinpoint the best time to run your announcement. If I have room I will run it more than once.

Second, I prefer that you correspond by email. I really don’t have time for lengthy phone calls (and I don’t take any announcements by phone) since I’m only in the office on Mondays and Tuesdays. Both days are spent with my nose to the computer, getting the pages for the current week ready.

I am always on the computer at home and will receive your emails almost as soon as you send them. I may not return your phone call right away but I will answer your questions by email in a second. Don’t worry about getting mail back from JodieK444@aol.com when you sent it to jkilgore@thecitizen.com. I assure you, it is me. All my work mail is forwarded to my AOL account.

Type your church news into an email (please don’t send it in an attachment) and send it to me at either address above. Photos should be attached separately in jpeg format, saved at a resolution of no less than 170 dpi (300 dpi is preferred). If I have time, I may reply, but I get so many announcements it is almost impossible to do that.

If you’re still not sure how to do it, drop me an email and I’ll send you some guidelines.

Again, thanks to all of you who have contributed, not only during this past year, but for many years gone by. God bless you all.

Judy Kilgore is religion editor for The Citizen. She may be reached at jkilgore@thecitizen.com or jodiek444@aol.com.