We are extremely proud to deliver to our readers, our Horizons 2005 edition.

This is the culmination of several months of work by every member of our newspaper family.

We believe the community will enjoy this year’s edition. For one, we believe it to be the largest single edition we’ve ever published.

This is one of those editions that is well worth 75 cents.

But this size edition could not have been possible without the very generous support of our business partners who chose to advertise within these pages.

It contains the usual sections: Our Lives, Our Heroes, Our Support, Ourselves, Our Jobs and Our Health.

This year we added a new special section that is an annual report on the Greenville Police Department.

We would like to thank Mayor Dexter McLendon, Chief Lonzo Ingram and the men and women who make up the GPD for their extensive support and patience as we created this section.

We believe it will be an invaluable tool for recruitment in the future for potential business owners or residents to see crime statistics in black and white.

We do look forward to your reading of the Day in the Life section.

Be sure to look for yourself as we tried to capture as many "real life" moments as possible in one 24-hour period.

So what have we learned in Horizons 2005?

Overall, we’re optimistic about the direction of Butler and Lowndes counties.

Our area still faces many challenges but through these pages you will see that we are certainly better off than we were one year ago, five years ago and certainly than 10 years ago.

So enjoy Horizons 2005 and know that life in our region is certainly better than ever.