Like many companies, the people who work here putting out our nine community newspapers are not just employees of the company, we are a family. And when you lose a family member, it hurts.

We lost one of our own this week. Susan Griffiths succumbed late Tuesday night to a brain aneurysm she had suffered while walking her dog early Sunday night. She collapsed in front of her home and neighbors had called 911; she was later flown from Medina to the Cleveland Clinic. Susan was 47.

Obviously, life goes on and we all had a newspaper to finish on Wednesday. However, in our 41 years of publishing we were fortunate to have never before experienced a sudden loss of a teammate like this. So forgive me, but my heart wasn't in the mood for talking politics this week.

We decided to dedicate our Opinion Page to a Memoriam for our fallen comrade.