Tomorrow many of us will have the day off. For years, Labor Day always seemed like one of those nonsense holidays that weren&8217;t tied to anything religious or historic.

It was just another day. It was nothing special.

No one famous was being honored on the day.

Nothing particularly important happened on that day.

No religious significance whatsoever.

Nope, Labor Day didn&8217;t seem to have a point.

The reality is the day was set aside as a holiday after lobbying from a labor union. The point was to create a workingman&8217;s holiday.

To that end, this morning, I&8217;d like to send out some much-needed &8220;thanks&8221; to some of the people who labor each day to make the newspaper a reality.

In alphabetical order by last name:

Rita Brooks manages the composing department for us. She&8217;s worked at the newspaper for a number of years, working for a while in classified sales. Rita has an amazing &8220;can-do&8221; attitude that always comes through no matter what needs to be done. She&8217;s one of those folks who always excels at whatever she does. She and her crew build the advertisements each day. When she&8217;s not at work she enjoys spending time with her family and collects old postcards.

Julie Finley

, one of the youngest members of the newspaper&8217;s management team, leads the newsroom, managing and training the staff of reporters and photographers. She does an excellent job and truly has a nose for news. When she&8217;s not reading, editing and coaching, the Ole Miss grad is active in her church, Parkway Baptist, and is a rabid Rebels baseball fan.

Johnnie Griffin is the veteran on our management team, leading the press and mailroom teams. And that&8217;s not to say he&8217;s old, he&8217;s just experienced. Johnnie is one of the most laid-back, yet professional, people I&8217;ve never known. His sense of humor is known throughout the newspaper. His ability to run the press while wearing a white shirt and never getting a touch of ink on him long ago earned him my &8220;best dressed pressman in the world&8221; title. Johnnie and his wife, Lorraine, have two children, who keep them both busy.

Sam King manages our circulation department. He&8217;s been back with us only a few months, but Sam is no stranger to the area or to the newspaper. He began working at the newspaper several years ago. He left the area briefly to manage another newspaper&8217;s circulation department before returning and joining the Vidalia Police Department. Sam isn&8217;t afraid of a hard day&8217;s work. No matter how tired he may be, he rarely, if ever, complains. Hopefully, he and his family will have a quiet day tomorrow with no surprise phone calls.

Sue Loy manages our advertising department. Sue does a great job in managing our advertising efforts and does so with great integrity and with an eye for what&8217;s best for the customer. She and her husband have three children, though in reality, it&8217;s almost as if Sue has a few dozen more since she&8217;s some times the staff mom, offering advice and guidance to the younger employees. She&8217;s one of a number of you readers who has a &8220;split&8221; household &8212; part LSU fans, part Ole Miss ones, particularly dangerous this time of year.

Carlee Reed manages the front reception area. She&8217;s arguably among the most &8220;visible&8221; of all the faces at the newspaper and we&8217;re lucky to have her. She&8217;s polite, courteous and has all of the other traits you hope to have representing you when dealing with the public. She, too, is active in her church.

Cassie Strickland manages our business office. She keeps track of the things we owe and the people who owe us and amazingly she&8217;s able to keep it all straight, even though it can be a mind-boggling task at times. When Cassie isn&8217;t at work, she&8217;s spending time with her family and her extended family of quarter horses.

Those are just a few of several dozen people who work hard each and every day to make the newspaper a reality. And I&8217;m thankful for each one of them, for who they are and for what they do, day-in, day out.

Kevin Cooper

is associate publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539.