Today I would like to pay a special tribute to a new friend of mine by the name of Randy Bowling. But first a little background, back in 2005 when I founded the “Bookcase for Every Child” literacy project where we give a personalized bookcase and a starter set of books to preschool children being reared in low-income homes, I was not prosperous enough to pay for all of this out of my own pocket. It was at this time that another long-time friend, Carolyn Wilson, executive director of the Mississippi Press Association, suggested that I develop a book of my columns, sell them and give all the profits to our bookcase project.

Well, I took her suggestion, and another friend, the late Dr. Dennis Schick, director of the Arkansas Press Association for 25 years, secured the services of a good number of award-winning journalists from across the country to read all my columns and select those to go in the book. We were on our way, and I followed through, and in a few months had several thousand books that we titled, “Learning, Earning & Giving Back.” This is a neat concept, as the first third of our life is for Learning or Education, the second third is for Earning, as in getting a job, and the last third is for Giving Back, assuming we have done well enough to have a little left over.