The Vicksburg Post staff kicked off a very important, annual project on Friday: Profile 2018.

This edition will be the fourth at The Vicksburg Post, and we’re excited about its potential this year.

Profile is an annual progress edition of sorts, much like a community yearbook. We begin work on the edition in October and it publishes the last Sunday in February. This year, that’s Feb. 25.

Our first Vicksburg Profile, published in February 2015, focused on 24 Hours in our community. Reporters and photographers worked around the clock to depict a typical day in our community.

In February 2016, Profile focused on The River and its impact in every aspect of life in Vicksburg and Warren County.

This year, February 2017, we profiled our community’s heroes, many of them unsung, and detailed the people who make Vicksburg the generous, caring place that it is.

Our theme for Profile 2018 is “The Story of Us.” Our staff came together a couple of weeks ago around a bunch of pizza and beverages and brainstormed the many unique people and things that collectively make us who we are as a community.

We narrowed down countless ideas to about 25 stories and photo essays we’ll begin work on in earnest on Monday to get ready to present to you in Profile 2018 on Feb. 25.

After those story ideas were finalized, we kicked off the Profile 2018 effort when we gathered for lunch Friday and played a game of co-worker trivia, testing how well we know each other’s story. It was a fun and eye-opening exercise.

Profile provides an opportunity for reporters and photographers to spend more time than typical working on content for the edition — more time for interviewing, more time for photographing, more time for writing. Our creative team gets to spend more time designing pages of the edition and advertising in it. Our sales team gets to spend more time with their customers planning campaigns that tell their stories.

Profile is a tremendous opportunity for businesses here to toot their own horns, thank their employees, get their message about what the business means here and to celebrate successes.

Profile is an exhaustive effort for our staff, but one we’ve come to know as a labor of love.

While it’s only the fourth Profile edition for The Vicksburg Post, it will be the 34 of my career. Editions like the one we are beginning work on now are part of what community newspapers do best, which is tell local stories about local people.

Our community is one of a kind, no doubt. We already know telling The Story of Us is going to be our pleasure.

Jan Griffey is general manager of The Vicksburg Post. You may reach her at jan.griffey@vicksburgpost.com.