Nothing exciting ever goes on around here. Ever heard someone say that in the Natchez area? If so, I hope you quickly corrected them.

While Natchez, Vidalia and surrounding areas may seem small compared to more metropolitan areas of the country, make no mistake about it, the area is teeming with interesting activity.

Our staff’s largest single news effort — Profile 2014 — is inside today’s print edition.

As usual, it’s chocked full of interesting stories photos and advertising.

For this year’s Profile section, we took a simple idea and ran with it: Exactly what happens here on a typical day.

At first, that may seem like a boring topic. Who wants to read about people who are just going about their business, living their lives?

Actually, as you turn through the 116 pages of Profile, I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised at how interesting a run-of-the-mill day in the Miss-Lou actually is.

Life is punctuated by a series of amazing moments, from birth into adulthood, ending, ultimately, in death.

But each stop along life’s way can help bring out the good in us all if we stop to look for it and pause to meet the great people who call our area home.

Profile’s theme this year is Around the Clock and our news staff examines a day in the life of the area through 24 stories, one for each hour of the day.

As you work through the Profile section — and it may take a few sittings to truly absorb all of the great stories and photographs inside — you’ll meet just a few of the fascinating people who are your neighbors.

You’ll meet a police officer who loves working the graveyard shift and a man who has put to rest — quite literally — hundreds of residents in the city graveyard.

You’ll meet a young mother who bonds with her daughter in, of all places, a deer stand.

Da’Jon Prater, an 11-year-old, McLaurin Elementary School student, will delight you with his easygoing nature and enjoyment for life. He and his favorite teacher, Jamal McCullen, share a special friendship that is certain to warm your heart. Their story is just one of the 24 stories inside Profile this year.

Hopefully, you’ll enjoy reading the section as much as our staff has enjoyed creating the section for you.

Profile 2014 started many months ago and is a labor of love for our newspaper. I offer many thanks to all of the staff members here at The Democrat who worked on the section.

My thanks also to the more than 200 local businesses that helped sponsor Profile 2014 by advertising in the section. I hope you’ll take note of those businesses and patronize them in the near future. Without them, Profile would not be possible.

Finally, thank you to all of the people who are featured in the Profile section. These are people who opened up their lives to us so we could share their stories with each of you.

My hope is that as you read the section you learn a little more about the community we all call home, a community that is massively busy on any given, 24-hour day.

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.