From time to time we hear someone talk about how Morenci’s reputation in Lenawee County is not so great. Many people have come up with an unsavory image of the community, one that’s puzzling to those who live here.

Some local residents point a finger at the county newspaper as a source of “bad news” about the community. A lot of stories have been splashed across the front page in recent years that haven’t placed Morenci in a good light.

We’ve reported on those stories, too, although they’re in a minority of the total articles produced. We know there’s so much more to the town than the occasional crime story, court case and arguments about rental housing, but readers across Lenawee don’t see the other side.

That’s quickly changing. Since the new year began, readers on the other side of the county learned about a Literacy Night project at the elementary school, about a school visit from a comic ventriloquist with a message, about student-led parent conferences by eighth graders, and about the firefighter training class in town over the weekend.

As the other newspaper covering Morenci events, we don’t enjoy getting beaten to the punch—the dailies have an advantage over the weeklies—but we’re truly pleased that this community is finally being viewed by other people around the county in a new light. It’s an important boost that this community needs and we hope it continues.

Are they just discovering that a lot of interesting things happen in this town? We’ve known that for years and we’ve reported on them week after week, year after year.

We certainly aren’t suggesting that bad news should be avoided. We’re just pleased that other articles are making it into print. There are a lot of good stories yet to tell and we hope it’s not only Morenci readers who learn about them.