December has a way of ripping by. Between endorsements, court battles and employee parties it’s nearly January, and I have barely kept up with LPJ.

So it’s time to update.

Endorsements: The Conway Daily Sun endorsed Mitt Romney for the 2012 G.O.P. nomination, although without enthusiasm. He is essentially the best of a poor field, the endorsement said, and so he’s the one we’d go with. Huntsman was good, but he seemed to me to be working out the bugs for a 2016 presidential run. Everyone else was severely lacking in some way. So we went with Mitt. It was an uninspiring choice, but overall the experience was a painstaking one. Buddy Roemer, in fact, was an office favorite, but you can’t endorse someone no one has even heard of. As a protest vote it would fall flat because people wouldn’t even know what we were saying. So we went bland but reliable — Mitt 2012. I look forward to similar discussions around the general election.

Court: We had our day in court with the Conway School Board over whether they had the right to deny our request for documents under the Right To Know law. I got to argue the paper’s position in front of a Superior Court judge, while two attorneys, two school board members and the superintendent took the opposing position. It was a ton of fun. I laid out the paper’s points as well as I could, and then laid out arguments against each point the two lawyers made. I’m not sure how we/I did yet, but if we lose we have the right to appeal. And regardless it was a fantastic experience.

And lastly, I was named the Sun’s employee of the year. I got the award at the paper’s Christmas party. It’s all glass and weighs as much as a brick. I have a photo somewhere, I’ll have to put it up here…

A lot happens in a couple weeks, even in a slow news month like December…