Billy Davis reminded us yesterday that his first writing published in this newspaper was at age 16 when he won an award in a poetry contest. We published the winning poems in a special section. His was among them.

This edition carries the last words he will write for us.

On Monday, Billy begins his new job as associate editor for OneNewsNow.com, a division of the American Family News Network of the American Family Association.

By now, Billy has written hundreds of thousands of words for this newspaper’s readers. His beat has been primarily county government — the Panola County Board of Supervisors, the Panola County Land Use Commission. He’s also covered spot news — the spontaneous, unplanned events that happen all the time around us — driven by a sense of obligation to readers, to provide us with a lively, interesting mix of hard news, entertainment and enlightenment that will keep us coming back to these pages, one edition after the next.

Billy joined us in 2005 when the Howell family re-entered active management of the newspaper. He had worked here previously after college before joining the staff of the Commercial Appeal.

In his new job, he will edit stories written for broadcast, updating and refreshing the stories for suitable  use online. We can keep up with him by visiting the web site.

We appreciate Billy’s service to this newspaper, to our readers.

Among the skills that have made him good for all of us is his innate ability to know what people want to know — about a person, a subject or event — and to ask the questions that will draw the information out for the reader.

Sometimes the questions were hard, but he seldom retreated and he always got the story.
Several political candidates and public officials may have been offended when his questions cut to the quick and crossed over their comfort zone. In most cases they eventually realized that was who Billy Davis is and learned to deal with him.

Among the stories and issues Billy worked doggedly on were the sale of the a county building in Crenshaw to a man named Roland Butler, Rolando, and the operation and sale of the publicly owned county/city hospital, Tri-Lakes.

Those who have kept up through these pages know that while many of his stories were controversial, the outcome in the end  showed that he was looking after the interest of the readers—the citizens of Panola County.

 And there were others, many still unfinished, with files passed on to others who will be ready to address those issues once they again rise to the surface.

In his absence others in this organization will pull together to cover his beats and continue to bring the news to Panolians—both the good and bad.

We will miss Billy.