Okay. So, for eight months now you’ve all been reading about how I’m slowly learning the ins and outs of life in Vicksburg. If it seems like it’s taking me a while, just remember I’m outnumbered 20,000 to 1, but I feel like every week – and with each story I write – I learn a little more about the community.

And my overmatched odds are really higher than that, because we also cover Warren County and the surrounding communities, so there are certainly times when I have to pull up Google Maps to figure out where something I’m writing about is actually located and things of that nature. And that’s just one aspect of getting to know a new place. But, I feel like a program I recently became a part of is really going to help in my quest to get to know the area better.

Monday, I attended orientation for Leadership Vicksburg. If you don’t know anything about the program, it consists of a new group of people each year, chosen from businesses and organizations all across Vicksburg and Warren County, and brought together for a nine-month program aimed at teaching those in the class to become better leaders and allowing us time to think of ways we can better help the community through our respective positions. I hope that was an okay definition that Chris Rials and Pablo Diaz at the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce will agree with.

Thing is, I feel very confident that the program will be a huge help to me as I work to process the inner workings of the areas, because it’s the third time I’ve been involved in one of these. Twice in south Alabama I took part in Leadership insert-name-here groups, and both times I had a blast, met people I’m still in touch with to this day and certainly learned a ton about the community where I was living and working at that time. What makes this version of the Leadership program even more exciting for me is that I’m getting in on it in my first year with The Post. In both of the other instances, I was part of a class a number of years after joining those newspapers – and they were both smaller communities – so I really already had a firm grasp on how everything worked, who people were, and what was important to our readers.

In Vicksburg, I certainly feel like I’ve learned a lot of those same important aspects of life here, but I know there is so much more I don’t know yet. Plus, in both of those smaller towns in Alabama I still learned things I didn’t know even after having been on the job for at least twice as long as I have been here.

So, all of that is to say I’m super-excited to get started. In fact, while you all are reading this Wednesday, I’ll be with my new classmates on our daylong retreat. I don’t really know who I’ll end up becoming friends with, what I’ll learn on our first full day together, or even where in Warren County I’ll be. I’ve never been to the location we’re scheduled to visit. But, I’m excited! I like new things and new people, I like learning, and I really like Vicksburg and Warren County.

It’s going to be a lot of fun!

Blake Bell is the general manager and executive editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at blake.bell@vicksburgpost.com.