Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

On my mind: Always learning something new

Another football season has somehow or another crept upon us. It crept up on me, at least.

Time sure does fly when youre having fun.

I enjoy football season because I get to see the action up close and personal. If you went to any of the home games last year, you may have seen me walking up and down the home-side sidelines with my camera in hand and notebook in my back pocket where it could be reached in a quick second to write down another stat.

Photography is one of my hobbies that has developed through my newspaper work over the years. It is just that  a hobby  because I am by no stretch of the imagination a professional photographer. I am trying to get my photos more in line with those professionals though.

Just last week before the junior high ballgame, I went to see Lannie Byrd, instructor of mass communications at Ouachita Baptist University who teaches the photography courses, in order to find out some things I could do to make my sports shots better. (On a side note, Lannie is the husband to Gurdon High Schools new journalism and English teacher, Jennifer Byrd.)

Lannie taught me how to control the shutter speed on my camera and how to adjust some other settings. I hope to practice some here and there, and hopefully by the end of the season, my pictures will be a lot better. (For a weekly newspaper our size, weve had good photography in the past; I just want to make it even better.)

Speaking of football season, Ive always wondered what a Go-Devil actually was. I thought that maybe it was a Devil who was in a hurry to get somewhere (on the go  get it?). I am from Lewisville where our mascot was the Red Devil. That didnt take much explaining, but a Go-Devil? My confusion has been somewhat cleared.

According to my sources, a Go-Devil is a little cart that they used back in the day to pull logs out of the woods. That makes perfect sense to me with Gurdon being a town where the timber industry is so prevalent. I Googled the term go-devil and found a variety of items. One was a little cart the ran on the railroad tracks and looked like it could have been used by the timber industry.

If I am wrong or if you know the legend of the Go-Devil in more detail, please let me know. I love to learn new things about the communities in which I interact.

I hope to see you at the ballgames. Dont forget, the Go-Devils play at home on Friday, Sept. 7. Kick-off is at 7 p.m.

I hope to see you there!