We don’t have many big meetings here in the newsroom.
I think, in part, that’s because nobody wants to spend much time in a room full of newspaper people. That’s what I think.
But we had a newsroom meeting, of sorts, on Wednesday. We talked a bit about our collective experiences relating to the May 22 tornado with Kenny Irby from the Poynter Institute. I don’t know much about the Poynter Institute because I think it deals with real journalism issues, and, as I think is pretty obvious, I’m not a real journalist. I play one sometimes, but I’m not one.
During our meeting, Kenny had us split into small groups of four and asked us to identify a group or an organization that impressed us with its response to the tornado. I think we were split into five separate groups. (Note: Real journalists typically do not start a sentence with the words “I think.”) After a few minutes, Kenny asked each group to name the group or organization that impressed it the most. Out of the five groups or reporters, editors and photographers, four picked the Joplin School District.
I thought that was something.
It’s been my experience that newspaper reporters rarely agree on anything. It sometimes takes newspaper folks a week to order pizza. But on Wednesday, four out of five groups agreed that the school district did a great job coming together after the tornado.
Again, I think that’s something.
To be fair, the school district was not the only group that was singled out by the newsroom folks. We also gave high grades to the area churches that all seemed to set denominations aside to work for the common good of everyone affected by the tornado. The city of Joplin also was applauded, as were the emergency workers who converged on the area, and, of course, the army of volunteers who came and are still coming to Joplin.
I think what we decided in that meeting was that a whole bunch of folks came together as a team almost immediately after the tornado hit the ground.
But even though the storm may have brought all of those people together, it did not create those teams. Those teams, those groups, were already in place before the tornado struck. They had to have been because there wasn’t enough time to create a team in the aftermath of the storm.
There is no way the school district would have been able to do the things it did immediately after the tornado if it didn’t already have a strong team in place. Let’s face it, if you waited until after May 22 to put a team and a playbook together, you were much too late.
The tornado did not create teams. It just gave them an opponent on which to focus.
Since the storm, we’ve all heard about how the tornado brought people together. How the tornado caused people to do amazing things in extraordinary times. How the tornado brought out the good in people.
And I guess all of that is true. But it also seems to me that people were pretty much already together before the tornado. People have always had the power to do amazing things in extraordinary times. And people have always had a lot of good in them. People have always had a tremendous capacity to pull together and succeed when success seems impossible.
All the tornado did was remind us of that.
Tornado: Mike Pound
Mike Pound: Winning teams in place before the tornado struck
- Tornado: Mike Pound
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Mike Pound: Saying nice things about St. John’s folks is easy
Francis Williams called me Wednesday morning and told me she reads my column “most every day.” I then waited for her next sentence, which usually goes something like this: “And I think you are a moron.”
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Mike Pound: Joplin Habitat looking for eligible families
A quick drive on Missouri Highway 171 near the Joplin Regional Airport tells you all you need to know.
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Mike Pound: Woman’s effort snags scrubs for Joplin
It was an idea so simple and so obvious that it makes people slap their head and say “Why didn’t I think of that?”
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Mike Pound: Veterans bearing gifts coming to Joplin
Robert Marrone told me that a planned trip to Joplin by a group of veterans from California University of Pennsylvania is just another way for them to give back to the community.
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Mike Pound: Minot, N.D. needs Joplin’s support, too
I tend to go through life without thinking. Or without thinking too much. I always felt that deep thinking was for folks ... well for folks who were deep thinkers. I tend to be a shallow thinker.
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Mike Pound: Winning teams in place before the tornado struck
We don’t have many big meetings here in the newsroom. I think, in part, that’s because nobody wants to spend much time in a room full of newspaper people. That’s what I think.
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Mike Pound: Group comes together for mother, child
The women all knew each other but they didn’t know each other well. They grew up in the same town, and they graduated from the same high school, but because of their slight age differences none of them were ever close friends.
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Mike Pound: There is no stopping the St. Mary’s backers
For a woman who is raising some serious cash, Tracey Welch doesn’t like to talk much about money. In response to a question this week about how close she and the other folks raising money for St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School were to Tracey’s $25,000 goal, she sort of dodged the question.
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Mike Pound: Mother of storm victims getting by ‘day by day’
“Are you sleeping at night?” Crystal Whitely pondered the question posed to her for a second. Then, through a tight smile, she said, “No, not really. I don’t know if I will ever sleep like I used to.”
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Mike Pound: How can we thank all those who have helped Joplin?
I sort of got a problem. It’s a nice problem, but a problem nonetheless. The problem is I can’t keep up with all of the nice things folks have been doing for Joplin. I’m not the only one having that problem.
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Mike Pound: Saying nice things about St. John’s folks is easy
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