By the time you read this, you’ve probably already seen the big flag above the nameplate on the front page, announcing that inside this edition of the Daily Press is “part 1” of our annual Progress edition.

Most regular Press readers are familiar with the Progress edition. Certainly family members of Press employees are no stranger to it! We produce this special supplement every April, but start working on it in March. We have to, because this labor-intensive project culminates in our biggest newspaper of the year.

But what’s up with the “part 1” moniker, you might ask?

This year, our advertising manager decided to try something different – different, at least, for us. Most newspapers these days do publish some sort of product that can at least loosely be dubbed as a “progress” edition, and because of its size, they sometimes split it into two parts.

There are several reasons for printing in a two-part format, but three are worth nothing here:

1. The newspaper editions involved are much less unwieldy and therefore easier to handle – not just for readers, but for carriers and others involved in the process.

2. Some advertisers feel they get more of a “spotlight,” since there are fewer featured in each edition.

3. Readers get more time to absorb the contents. By the time they’re finished with part 1, the newspaper staff is ready to present them part 2.

With those things in mind, that’s the route we’ve taken this year.

Roughly half of the sections – Education, Leadership, Health and United Keetoowah Band – are included in this Sunday, April 20, edition of the Press.

The remaining sections – Quality of Life, Business, Tahlequah City Hospital, Cherokee Nation and Green Country – will be published next Sunday, April 27. Those constitute “part 2” of the project. (Green Country, incidentally, enfolds what was the “lead” section when Progress was lumped into one edition. Since there are two parts, there was no need to have a “cover” section, per se.)

The theme for Progress this year is “Participate, Communicate, Celebrate,” and it was chosen to focus on folks in the community who do just that. Our cover stories for each section feature couples or families who have, in their own way, made a very special impact on life in Cherokee County. And we’re not just talking about their lives – we’re talking about the lives of all of us.

Of course, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of families and couples who fit the bill, but space and time constraints prevent us from doing stories on all of them. We picked one family for each cover, and we believe you’ll agree our choices are good ones.

As usual, the inside pages of Progress are chock-full of good information about area businesses, institutions, and organizations that are part of the fabric of this area. We hope you enjoy catching up on what’s been happening with them recently.

And speaking of recent happenings, we’d like to thank our readers for their patience. Over the past week, our paper has been late a few times, due to press problems at the Muskogee Phoenix, where our paper is printed. We hope this situation will be resolved by the time you read this, and that we can get everyone back on schedule.