Earlier this week, The Covington News started announcing its selection for the upcoming 40 Under 40 magazine in no particular order. Since the announcement of the first honoree, we have received a lot of positive feedback, but also a lot of questions about the process, the honor and the magazine. Let me break it down for you right now. 

More than two months ago, I first introduced the 40 Under 40 concept to this newspaper in a column on this same opinion page. We had just opened the nomination process for the honorees. That was just the beginning. 

Nominations were received for each and every honoree in our magazine; sometimes more than one. More than 100 nominations were received in this process and we did not yet begin to take the steps to narrow them down to the 40 you will eventually come to know a lot better. 

Each nominee was then sent an application to fill out to provide more information to the selection committee. The application raised questions about the nominee’s accomplishments, community involvement and personal relationship with Newton County. That process took another month to complete. 

Finally, it was decision time. With more than 40 applications received, we began the process of reading through each one before making the final decisions about our final list. Some tough decisions had to be made to land the final list. 

On Oct. 20, you will see the list of honorees in its totality, in a special magazine publication included with this newspaper. It will be the first of its kind in Newton County. I not only encourage you to read through it, like I do with every publication produced by this newspaper, but I also encourage you to learn more about the people in your community. I promise you these people are the best of the best. 

What’s next? As I mentioned previously, we received more than 100 nominations for this publication. That means there are so many hardworking and dedicated young people in our community that it is going to have to become an annual publication just to keep up. 

Please help us celebrate the 2018 40 Under 40 honoree class as we continue to share their photos on our social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram at @covnews) leading up to the magazine and stay tuned for nominations for next year’s plublication. 

Jackie Gutknecht is the editor and publisher of The Covington News. She can be reached at jgutknecht@covnews.com or 770-728-1409. Twitter: @jackieg1991