I once fell asleep standing up at my post during an overnight double shift. I’ve picked rocks from farmer’s fields, milked cows, shoveled manure. I’ve doled out cigarettes and lottery tickets as a gas station, scrubbed toilets, operated fork trucks, simultaneously waited on a dozen packed restaurant tables, I even changed fifty or so dirty diapers in a single daycare shift once ... but I’ve never worked so hard at anything as The Evening Sun’s annual Progress Chenango edition. Nor have I even been so proud.

Standard for just about any project we carry out at The Evening Sun, motivations for success are drawn from the reputation left behind in our work more than the paycheck we draw.

Our task during this time is to visit the most prominent businesses and organizations in the area so we can convey their roles in the community to the public.

Though each staff writer approaches Progress with their own style, a standard formula usually requires summarizing their histories, explaining what they exactly do, describe in detail the activities of 2010 and the projections for 2011.