The Tidewater News staff is busily preparing for our next Progress edition, a special supplement that we run each Sunday in March that highlights important aspects of our community.

Sections include Health, Education, Commerce and Neighbors, to name a few.

For the most part, the Progress edition is staff-written and produced, a fact that we take immense pride in each year, both because the quality of the issue is top-notch and because we are able to contribute to it despite our hectic schedules putting out three newspapers a week.

There are two exceptions — something we could use your help with, dear readers.

We are asking for contributions for both the Legends and Lore and Remember When sections.

For Remember When, we need lots of stories and photographs about the old days in our readership area. We have special friends (I’m talking about you, Kitty Lassiter, Betty Darden and Spier Edwards) who regularly contribute these items to our newspaper, but we need more to fill our Progress pages.

Please stop by the paper and turn something in. We have the ability to scan your old photos and give them right back to you, so there’s no need to leave precious family heirlooms at our office.

And won’t it be neat to see that old stuff in print? I think so.

For Legends and Lore, we want to hear old stories about the area, even if those stories give us the creeps. I’ve already heard about the light at the Black Creek swamp. Surely there are some other fantastic stories to be told, and we can’t wait to bring them to our readers.

Call me at the newspaper, or e-mail the address below and let me know.

Speaking of readers, there has been a call to reinstate our recipes feature, and I would like to do that.

Send us an old family recipe, tell us all about its meaning to your family and we will publish it. I don’t know about you, but I love clipping recipes. A story about yours would be an added bonus.

Plus, I’ve been planning to do some southern cooking since I moved here.

Bring ‘em on!