As we enter one of the most joyful weeks of the year, it is a wonderful time to pause and thank each one of you for allowing us the privilege of coming into your homes during the past 12 months.

Saturday, December 18, 1999

As we enter one of the most joyful weeks of the year, it is a wonderful time to pause and thank each one of you for allowing us the privilege of coming into your homes during the past 12 months.

Publishing a newspaper offers an unique opportunity for each of us as we seek to bring you the news as well as be the community’s marketplace through retail and classified advertising.

On many days, we bring you the happiest of news, ranging from the birth of a child to the many good works performed by countless organizations and individuals in Lawrence County. On others, the news is not as happy, and each of us feels acutely the pain of those covering events.

We thank you for the privilege of being your hometown family newspaper – a proud tradition which has continued for almost 150 years.

It is our wish at The Tribune, collectively and individually, that this final Christmas holiday of the 20th century brings to you and yours the very best of everything.

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An interesting event will occur next week on Wednesday, Dec. 22. This year will mark the first full moon to occur on the winter solstice – commonly called the first day of winter – in 133 years.

Since the full moon on the winter solstice will occur in conjunction with a lunar perigee, the point in the moon’s orbit that is closest to Earth, the moon will appear about 14 percent larger than it does at apogee, the point in its elliptical orbit that is farthest from the Earth.

The Earth also is several million miles closer to the sun than in the summer, and sunlight striking the moon will be about 7 percent stronger, making it brighter.

Also, this will be the closest perigee of the moon of the year, since the moon’s obit is constantly deforming.

In layman’s terms, it will be a very, very bright full moon, much more than the usual, and it hasn’t happened this way for 133 years.

If the weather is clear, it is believed by some that even car headlights will be superfluous.

Our ancestors 133 years ago saw this. Our descendants 100 or 20 years from now will see this again.

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Readers will be saddened to learn that long-time Tribune columnist Louise Sark Lavender is retiring.

Mrs. Lavender has long been a popular writer among our readers and has single-handedly gathered information for such weekly items as the Perry Township News and Nursing Home Notes columns and her Who’s Who in Lawrence County features.

Recently, Mrs. Lavender underwent heart surgery, and, thankfully, she is recuperating nicely. However, because she needs to concentrate fully on regaining her strength, she has decided to lay down her pen.

We all will miss her cheery voice and bright smile, and we know our readers will miss her weekly contributions, too.

We wish her Godspeed in her recovery.

Jennifer Allen is publisher of The Ironton Tribune.