If you think about the totality of a community, we’re all just words in a huge crossword puzzle.

Without each and every one of us, our puzzle – in this case, our community – wouldn’t be the same.

And just like in any crossword puzzle, the right letters intersect others and form new things.

Inside today’s edition of The Demopolis Times you will find the 2011 installment of our annual Profile edition.

Themed “Pieces of Our Puzzle”, it is our largest annual undertaking.

Chronicled on its pages you will find several of the pieces of our puzzle.

Also, you’ll find several stories written by local high school students. In those stories, you’ll find the pieces of their puzzle.

Take, for example, Gracie Smith. She’s a Demopolis youth who, in her own time and own way, is going to take the world by storm.

I’ve gotten to know Gracie, and her family, over the years. She’s got the know-how, the want-to, and the genetics to do whatever she wants to do. And when she does it, hundreds – maybe thousands – of people will be a word in her crossword puzzle; and she in ours.

In another example, take Darius Stewart.

He’s a Demopolis High Schooler who is taking an active role in keeping his little brother out of trouble.

Learning from your mistakes is good. Helping others learn from your mistakes is admirable. That makes you a word in their crossword and them in yours.

Demopolis and Marengo County is full of puzzle pieces and random letters in the crossword. I

Each of our own little worlds holds yet another crossword.

For those of you who have never played the game “Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon”, the rules are simple. You pick an actor at random and you connect them to other co-stars in various movies until you arrive at someone who co-starred in a movie with Kevin Bacon. It’s a ridiculous party game. But, I think, the premise of the game transcends into real life.

Like a crossword puzzle, my life – and your life – and the things that make our worlds what they have become are unique. However, the more your life unfolds, the more people you come in contact with and the more people you touch.

Those are the “Ones Across” and “Four Down” that intersect and make up the majority of life’s crossword puzzle. This year’s profile edition was a 32 page intense labor that I find incredibly interesting when you step back and look at the crossword as the whole. I hope you think so, too.

Jason Cannon is the publisher of The Demopolis Times.