Sometimes I really miss Kodak film

Joe Coates
Publisher

So, Saturday morning I woke up a little earlier than a normal weekend morning.  I slammed down one cup of coffee and poured another to go.  I got dressed in weekend attire–ball cap, old t-shirt, shorts and tennis shoes. Then, I headed out the door to cover the Hazlehurst City School District Stuff the Bus Kickoff 5k Run/Walk in town.
I was running a little behind, and I knew it.  But, I didn’t drive recklessly to get there. I drove…efficiently…let’s say that.  When I arrived at the start/finish line behind the Courthouse around 7:15, the event was over.  I found out that close to a hundred adults and kids participated, and all of them finished within an hour-and-fifteen-minutes.
A lady at the finish line, who was packing up leftover sign in sheets and other forms, told me that everyone was headed over to the school for Meet the Indians and Meet the Cheerleaders in a half hour.  So, that’s where I went.
When I arrived I saw a few people milling around the edge of the football stadium and a tent at the entrance of the high school.  I spoke to Linda Davis, Superintendent of the School District.  She and I chatted about all the things going on ahead of school starting this week.  “Everyone is excited and ready,” she said.  Even though the sun beat down on all of us out there that morning, I saw kids running around playing and having a good time like it was nothing.  “Yeah, they are ready for school,” I thought.
While there I met Kim Langston, the new principal of the elementary school just down the street about a mile.  We got to talking with Paul Rhodes, a member of the district’s Board of Trustees, and she invited me to go see the decorating being done by the teachers in the elementary school.  You see, these teachers, along with some of their own friends and family, had spent hours and hours and days and some nights working on the appearance of their classrooms and hallways to make the ‘scholars’, as Langston refers to the children, feel welcome–some of whom will be attending school for the first time.
The hallways were decorated in themes: Academic Jungle, 4th grade; Hollywood, 3rd grade; Circus, 1st and 2nd grade; and Sea World, K5. I took a ton of photos of all the decorations and listened intently as Kim explained the goals and objectives of the teachers for the coming year.
After about an hour, I went back to the high school to record the Meet the Indians event, but it was another hour or so before everything was in place.  I took that time to visit with some more folks and record video that is posted on our Instagram account (@copiahcourier, if you’d like to follow us.)
The fun was over around 10:30, and I headed back home.
I came back to the office late Sunday evening after dropping my son off at church to download the photos, which would have taken 2 or 3 minutes, tops.
I inserted the card, up pop the contents, I scroll through and select all the files and attempt to copy them to a folder on our server, but forgot to ‘paste’ before I deleted them off the camera card.  By the time I discovered the snafu, it was too late.
Ohhh…my heart sank like a lead weight.  All that time, all that work that was done by those teachers, by the folks in charge of the kickoff…gone in an instant of my haste.
My apologies go to the teachers, to Linda and to  Kim–and to the kickoff crew.  I dropped the ball.  Y’all have done an incredible job of getting the scholars ready for school.   That we can’t print the images in the paper this week is a tragedy.
Sometimes, I still yearn for the days when we still processed film around here.  Sometimes, digital isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.