Editor Waggener:

Sharon Whitehurst's superb photos and essays are all the better for her seeing hill and hollow, stream and sky, kith and kin, through fresh eyes sparkling with excitement.

It occurs to this wayfaring stranger that while Ms. Whitehurst and any number of other Adair Countians may be from off, they're Of Here -- a fact, a *choice,* that far transcends place of birth (nothing more than an ephemeral quirk, happenstance of less note than a ship passing itself in the dark).

Adair County is where their collective heart feels the tug of home. To slightly paraphrase Mr. Charles Miller's recent comment about his beloved granddaughter, Miss Ruby Anne, "They're Adair Countians through and through."

/s/ The Wayfaring Stranger