Dec 28, 2015 By Eric Morris emorris@heraldstandard.Com 3 min read

We’re days away from closing the book on 2015.

The holiday season offers a period of comfort as many people have the opportunity to take a little time away from work to spend with their family and friends.

Some tend to use this time to reflect on personal and professional growth, and, similarly, I’d like to use this column to reflect on a few things from the past year and (perhaps more importantly) look at what 2016 will bring.

It’s a cool feeling to be able to document history by writing about events that mean a lot to people and their communities. This year I had the pleasure of writing about local entrepreneurs opening new businesses, companies developing land for future enterprise and economic development professionals working to aid area commerce.

I’m happy I could provide readers with those pieces of news and to be able to say I was there to witness change in Fayette County.

In my short time living and working in the community, I feel I’ve had considerable success forging relationships with a number of people that I’ve met in this line of work as we attended the same meetings and events.

But, ultimately, this is a period of transition for me in my role at the Herald-Standard, so I want this to serve as a thank you to one group of people and a friendly hello to another.

After spending the past year-and-a-half as the newspaper’s business reporter, I will be taking over the education beat due to the departure of Natalie Bruzda, who is leaving us for a job on the other side of the country.

Working with Natalie and observing how she handled her job duties and seeing the level of commitment she had to her work, it is obvious I have large shoes to fill.

Luckily, she left me some advice and a strong example to follow, and I welcome the new challenge.

I look forward to attending school board meetings and working with faculty and staff in our area school districts to provide strong, accurate coverage of local education, a facet of society that affects most everyone in some way.

So to everyone I’ve encountered in covering business and economic development in Fayette County: I’m not going anywhere. Feel more than welcome to continue the conversations we’ve started.

Many people in our local businesses and organizations welcomed me and treated me kindly when I was new to the beat, and I appreciate that.

And to everyone I will soon meet in my new assignment: I look forward to working with you, and I’m eager to learn the ins and outs of the education system and our local school boards.

I hope together we can build strong relationships that will benefit the residents of your respective school districts and highlight the accomplishments of your children.

I’ll see you in 2016.