In May of 2005 I searched for jobs that would move me from my tiny Nebraska town to Anywhere More Urban, USA. I drove hours to Wyoming to check out a position as editor of a weekly paper and had phone interviews with three other papers. It wouldn’t have been hard to find a town bigger than Palisade, Neb., population 386.

After all my looking and all those job interviews, the place that enticed me was Kearney. The job, the schools, the proximity to Kansas City and to my brothers in Johnson County, Kan., all drew me to move. I loved the small-town feeling and big-city advantages in Kearney. Caleb, Abigail and I packed up our lives — with the help of friends, older children and my brothers — and moved.

I didn’t know anyone here, nor did the kids. I felt overwhelmed with all the changes and lonely for my Nebraska friends for months. Still, it didn’t take me long to find that Kearney held a lot for us. We were blessed to stumble into a fantastic school system with good academics, an amazing music program on the secondary level and a plethora of friends for my children.

We loved the town: its walking trails, the amphitheater, the community theater and all the community events.

We found Kearney welcoming and still do. That’s the hardest part of leaving my job as editor of The Kearney Courier. It’s leaving the day-to-day interaction I have with the city I’ve come to love and the people who make this town great.

The people in the community have been the highlight of my stint as editor of Kearney’s local paper. I’ve been the one privileged to hear from you when you’ve had a new baby, opened a new business, lost loved ones, celebrated victories, earned awards, grown toddler-sized sweet potatoes, fashioned doughnuts to be works of art, earned top scores on Missouri Assessment Program tests or graduated from college.

On the last day of the month I am leaving the newspaper industry to go into public relations for an international nonprofit based in Kansas City. Even though I am leaving The Courier, I am not leaving town.

I hope to see the readers who have become my friends at the Jesse James Festival, amphitheater events, on July 3 under the fireworks at Jesse James Park, at the Mayor’s Christmas Tree Walk and many more events.

Even though this column will no longer appear in The Courier or anywhere else, I write a blog that I invite my readers to visit from time to time. You can find me on the Web at eallenhoffman.blogspot.com. I don’t blog every day, but I am hoping that I will soon have more time to dedicate to writing my books, magazine articles and my blog.

Thanks, Kearney, for welcoming my children and me. If you’re in the Old Church Plaza in the next week, stop by and say goodbye.

Kearney Editor Emily Hoffman can be reached at 628-6010 or ehoffman@npgco.com.

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