We’re Thankful For Your Support

Joyce Claypool opened her life to reporter Carla Johnson, a life marked by a chaotic childhood, sexual addiction, marriage to a drug addict, and finally AIDS. An honest account of Claypool’s life, and the death of her 7-year-old daughter from AIDS, began Thursday in this newspaper and concludes Sunday in the IN Life section.

Through Claypool’s life story, perhaps others will see and understand how family dysfunction can mark a child and influence the decisions that child makes as an adult. But Claypool’s story also shows how a person can turn a life around, no matter how dark the life. Claypool did it through a strong faith in God and strong support from her church.

On this Thanksgiving weekend, we want to thank Joyce Claypool for her courage in telling her story to our readers. And thank the thousands of other men, women and young people who have allowed their voices to be heard in The Spokesman-Review this past year.

More than 3,000 of you wrote letters to the editor. About 100 penned Your Turns; dozens of you sent in cartoons you drew to express opinions artistically. About 60 teenagers - writers and teen advisory council members - gave their input to the Our Generation section, keeping it relevant to teens’ lives. And thousands more of you called Cityline numbers to share with reporters and editors your views on dozens of topics, from the serious to the whimsical, from your thoughts on the Beatles’ “new” song, to your thoughts on the Spokane city-county charter proposal.

It is easy to sit back and complain about all that’s wrong with our families, schools, communities, our country, the world. But it takes energy and commitment to sit down and write out your complaints and offer a solution. It takes energy to pick up the phone and express an opinion or share a story through Cityline.

But the time spent pays off. Those of you who opened your lives to us, or shared your opinions, helped us better reflect the world we all share. There are about 150 reporters, editors and support staff working in Spokesman-Review newsrooms. We can’t be everywhere. We haven’t walked in many of your shoes and wouldn’t know how to tell your stories, if you didn’t help us.

So thank you for that help. And keep your voices coming.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Rebecca Nappi/For the editorial board