Panolian subscribers will find a gift in today’s edition — 52 of the cutest kids you’ll ever see. Their photos have been compiled in the 2016 Cutest Baby Calendar that has been included as a newspaper insert for mail subscribers. The calendar is also free and available at the newspaper office at 363 Highway 51 North while supplies last.
The Cutest Baby Calendar came about from staff members who wanted to make sure there would be a sufficient supply of Friday editions of The Panolian for every teacher who requests them for classroom use. The seven corporate sponsors featured today in an advertisement on page eight generously underwrite this Newspaper in Education program. To raise enough money to make up the difference, so that we could fill all the requests from classrooms, our staff came up with the Cutest Baby Contest. They soon learned that even more easy than taking candy from a baby is having the baby’s family out raising money for them in a contest.
The twelve babies who raised the most money in support of the NIE program are featured month by month in beautiful color photos. Photos of each of the 52 babies entered appear in the calendar on his or her birthday, and all 52 are featured again on the back of the calendar.
It’s a calendar that’s guaranteed to make you smile. Photographer Christina Houston has captured 12 different personalities from our features — happy, up-to-something, easy-going, mile-a-minute, wonderment, determination, awe — they are all represented by these beautiful babies.
The project raised more than enough money to provide newspapers for the 1,711 students in the North Panola, South Panola and North Delta Schools whose teachers requested them. It seemed appropriate that the surplus — raised in good faith by so many family members — be donated to the Batesville Exchange Club which has child abuse prevention education as its focus.
It’s hard to even think about abused children when you look at the happy faces of these cutest babies, but we all know it’s there.
Thanks to our staff members who worked out the details for the Cutest Baby Contest, thanks to the family members and supporters who love these babies so much, and thanks to these babies for just being so cute.
Now, turn through the pages of the 2016 Cut1est Baby Calendar and see if you can keep from smiling.