Herald Is A Good Bang For Your Buck: Eight Years Equal One Speeding Ticket

I don’t have much Water Valley news this week because I’ve barely been in town. Family obligations and work trips have dominated my January. Most of what I know about recent happenings in Water Valley I have read about in the paper. Thank goodness for the Herald! (I promise David Howell didn’t make me write that.)

One of the very best ways to “Buy Local” and “Support Local” is to purchase a subscription to our local newspaper. I’ve said it before and I’ll say as long as I write in the newspaper and beyond: To have a true local paper is very rare these days and our town’s still having one is incredibly special.

Did you know that a year-long subscription to the North Mississippi Herald is cheaper than a date for two (with two margaritas) at El Charrito? Did you know that it’s cheaper than one tank of gas in a 2014 Toyota Sienna burgundy minivan? A year-long subscription to the Herald is the cost of three to-go plate lunches at Pigsaver. Margaritas, gas, a Pigsaver plate lunch and a local paper – what more could one need in this town? That’s the full Water Valley package.

I was in another small town earlier this week. Not voluntarily, mind you. My intention was to drive straight through this small town but I was stopped by a man in ill-fitting blue jeans who looked like the stapler guy from the movie “Office Space.” He was wearing a law enforcement badge on a police vest that had seemingly been run-over several hundred times. The whole ensemble was, ironically, suspect. But he was a friendly person and gave me a town souvenir in the form of a speeding ticket. I don’t know if anyone has ever been to Waterproof, Louisiana but, if you plan on it, be sure not to go 61 mph in a 55-mph zone.

While I waited in the gas station parking lot for my ticket to be delivered to my van window, I looked this cop up online to make sure he was actually a real police officer in case I was being punked. He was not only a cop but was the Waterproof, Louisiana Chief of Police! I also learned online that he had once been in trouble for intentionally burning down a mobile home. Never have I wished for a small-town paper more than in Waterproof, Louisiana. I could tell this town had some news to report.

This want of a local paper in Waterproof suddenly jogged my memory. When I was a kid, my mom’s friend bought her a subscription to the local newspaper where her mother lived in Louisiana. The Tensas Gazette was the paper and it covered Tensas Parish. That was the parish I was in! The Tensas Gazette was a great (and comical) local paper. My mom often circled articles or cut headlines from the paper and hung them on the fridge. The Tensas Gazette was one of the reasons I developed an early love of newspapers. It all made sense to me now. From early years of reading this parish’s local newspaper, I knew why Waterproof had a cop like this. I would expect no less (or more.)

All this to say, did you know that you can get EIGHT year-long subscriptions to the North Mississippi Herald for the cost of one speeding ticket in Waterproof, Louisiana? What a deal! Go online today and subscribe! Treat yourself!