Editor’s Note: Rude Awakening

On Sunday, November 1, 2026, I got one of my all-time birthday wishes granted. I always wanted to be a super-villain in a comic book. But this wasn’t any comic book. Not an issue of Batman (my favorite), Super-Man (my least favorite), or Spider-Man (everyone loves Spider-Man, right?), but a real life Facebook post villain. 

Earlier that day I posted a video of incoming Georgia Governor Keisha Lance Bottoms, the first Black female to hold that office in the 250 years of American governance, at a campaign event IN DUBLIN on The Courier Herald Facebook page. That video went viral in all the worst ways. It apparently sparked the interest of Laurens County residents who follow The Courier Herald Facebook page and either have interest in the Bottoms’ campaign or loathe it with a passion that I expected but was still surprised when I watched it playing out in real time. There were 635 comments (and counting) on the video post and 174 comments on the subsequent post that I made where I posted a link to the story from the event. If I had to guess, more than 90 percent were either racist or straight up negative.

Here’s a quick sample:

Vote Red

Friends don’t let friends vote for democrats.

They all think they are getting a cell phone upgrade. 

Bad mayors do not make good GOVERNORS. VOTE RED. 

Since when did The Courier Herald start posting videos of political events in Dublin? The Courier Herald is starting to look more like the local CNN than a hometown newspaper!

And my all-time favorite: The Courier Herald hired a #DemocratCommunist editor just to keep the paper biased.

I have never been called a “Democrat Communist” during my 20-years as a journalist, so I proudly consider this a touchstone moment of my career. All this behind a Facebook post? What If I were to write a column about the current state of politics in this great state? What kind of response would that illicit I wonder? No matter, this is what I signed up for when I agreed to be the next editor and publisher of a century-plus-year-old respected “hometown” newspaper. 

My 49th birthday is yesterday, Saturday, November 7, and I wonder to myself as I write this and prepare to put together another issue of The Courier Herald: “What a way to celebrate another year of life as a father, husband, Christian, and journalist.’ 

I’m not mad at the negative comments. In fact, I like it. It shows that there is passion behind politics in Laurens County, and that is what I was looking for as I covered that campaign event last Sunday, Election Day this past Tuesday, and whatever local stories I help lead the coverage of going forward. With Election Day behind us, there are so many more events and holidays to cover, including next week on Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and of course, Christmas. 

Being a newspaper man is what I wished for as a kid and it continues to be the wish God grants me every day. That and being a comic book super-villian. That I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. One time was enough.