I absolutely love lists.

They range from the fun, like ranking the best movies or songs, to the practical like procedural checklists and to-do lists.

The latter is something I make every day. Not only does it help to organize tasks, it provides a sense of accomplishment. “Eat lunch” is an obviously mundane thing that appears on those daily reminders, but crossing it off as a job done still feels pretty good.

Lists can make my job easier in other ways, too. When I can’t think of a good column idea, patching together a list of three or four things fills the space.
The only real problem with lists is that sometimes they get too long. Several years ago I tried doing a weekend football roundup called “Four Down Territory” that was four items long. The concept started as

“First and 10,” and I was two items into it when I realized that finding 10 things to write about in a concise way was an arduous weekly task. Four was much more manageable.

This winter, The Vicksburg Post is embarking on its annual “Profile” magazine project. Each year there is a theme to it. We’ve done “24 Hours in Vicksburg,” “Then and Now,” “The River,” and others. For 2025, to coincide with Vicksburg’s bicentennial celebration, the theme is “200 Things We Love About Vicksburg.” It’s basically a really big list.

Now, it’s not too hard to rattle off a couple dozen things on that topic — favorite restaurants, people and institutions are easy. Put your brain to work and you might get to 40 or 50.

But 200!?

That’s a lot, folks.

If you jot them down, it soon devolves into a list of every business and person in Warren County. We might as well reprint the phone book. It also becomes solely our staff’s opinion instead of what should be a fun community-wide poll.

So, dear reader, we at The Vicksburg Post could use some help. We want to know what you love about our fair city. What people, places and things put a smile on your face, or make you rave when you tell someone about them?

It doesn’t have to be a specific place. It can be a neighborhood tradition, or someone who has worked at a business for a long time, or just something quirky and intangible that makes you smile. Since this is a sports column, maybe it’s something about our local sports scene that you really enjoy.

We’d like to include a sentence or two about each one in “Profile,” so let us know why as well and we’ll include your blurb. You can email them to me at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com; our news editor Blake Bell at blake.bell@vicksburgpost.com; or drop us a line through our Facebook page.

There’s a lot of things to love about Vicksburg. Help us make a list.

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Ernest Bowker is the sports editor of The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest.bowker@vicksburgpost.com