Whether or not one knows anything about the newspaper business, the journey of Debbie Lurie-Smith is one of the more interesting stories to read.
Lurie-Smith is the Editor of The Jones County News and has been since 2006. However, she is not your typical editor, managing a staff from an office desk. Rather, she is out in the community, in court, talking with law enforcement, at government meetings, anywhere she needs to be to keep Jones County readers informed.
It took her a while, however, to get to Jones County and in the business of writing news stories.
The transplanted Kentucky native grew up in a suburb of Louisville with one brother, two years her elder. She says her childhood days were relatively typical.
“It was almost like being in a small town,” Lurie-Smith described. “A great neighborhood. We rode bikes, played at night. In the summertime, we were out playing from sunup to sundown. It was great. My parents stayed married until they died.”
After graduating from high school, Lurie-Smith worked in the trust department of a bank for 18 years. She went through a marriage, divorce, remarriage and the death of her husband. There were two sons born, Steve Smith and Josh Lurie, thus her hyphenated name.
Lurie-Smith and Jack Smith, who later lived in Gray and was a police officer, reconnected several years after Ricky Lurie’s death.
“We were expecting our first grandchild. We started talking to each other again,” Lurie-Smith recalled. “Twenty-five years after our divorce, we remarried. That’s how I got to Gray.”
Nearly 30 years later, the couple still are married, but he lives in Missouri.
“It’s like when you divorce somebody and remarry, you realize why you divorced,” she laughed. “We’re still very good friends. Still stay in touch.”
Lurie-Smith’s first job here was with the City of Gray.
“I was a traffic cop. I stood right on the corner, and when the buses would come from Califf, they would come up the road there … I wore the uniform, the Smoky Bear hat; it was a good trip,” she recalled with a laugh.
Lurie-Smith told of the turn of events that likely changed the course of her life. She applied for a job as a dispatcher with the sheriff’s office but was offered and accepted a position at Gray City Hall. She then learned she would have gotten the dispatcher slot.
“So my life could have been really different if I had started working as a dispatcher at the Sheriff’s Dept.”
Shortly thereafter, Lurie-Smith’s path did, in fact, take a different course.
She became friends with Sandra McKinney, who knew that Tasi Moore at The Jones County News was looking for someone to work in the office. She reluctantly agreed to go talk with Moore.
“At the end of the interview, she said she would like to hire me, but she didn’t think she could afford me,” Lurie-Smith recalled. “And, I’m thinking, ‘does she know what I’m making at City Hall’? So, anyway,” she added, laughing, “that’s how it was worked out.”
She was hired as the office manager, and she remembers the frequent turnover in reporters as well as the day the publisher asked her to attend a school groundbreaking ceremony.
She recalls she told him she didn’t know anything about writing up news events, but he insisted. “He said, ‘It doesn’t matter, just go out there and do it, see what happens and take a picture.’” She did as he requested.
“I must have done okay because he started asking me to do other things.”
Lurie-Smith said her writing duties increased while she was still office manager, and, due to domestic issues, she told Moore she was going to seek a job earning more money.
“She said, ‘I don’t think we’re going to do that. We’re going to work something out. ’ So, we did,” Lurie-Smith confirmed. She began writing stories pretty much full-time then.
The veteran editor said the job was a challenge at first, having to learn to write news stories with no experience. However, she pointed out, the time and effort was a benefit.
“I kind of feel like it saved my life,” she opined. “When your marriage doesn’t work out, it’s hard. To have something like I had with the newspaper, to throw myself into it, it takes up a lot of time, a lot of meetings, a lot to cover.
“It’s kept me busy, but kind of a lifeline for me, because anytime things get rough, I can just concentrate on my work.”
Lurie-Smith was more than just the editor for about 11 years, as she and Josh purchased the newspaper in 2007 and kept it until 2017, when they sold it to Mark Smith, whose company owns several weekly newspapers. Josh Lurie is the Managing Editor of The Jones County News and three other newspapers.
In her more than 20 years of covering all types of events, Lurie-Smith has written more than 7,000 articles, and she has won numerous awards for her work. The Georgia School Boards Association recognized her with the Beacon Award in 2016, and she was presented the Jim Stone Friends of Education award in 2013. She has been recognized by the Georgia Press Association numerous times, including nine firstplace awards in different categories as well as many second- and third-place finishes.
Lurie-Smith discussed how technology and the advancement of computers has altered the production and distribution of newspapers since she joined the staff in 1998. She also explained how that technology helped her through another difficult time over the past two years.
She shared that her oldest son, Steve, was living in Houston and diagnosed with throat cancer.
“I was able to go to Houston for more than two months,” she said. “And just live out there and take care of him while he was going through his cancer treatments. I took him to every treatment.”
Technology made the difference, she pointed out. She was able to watch County Commission and Board of Education meetings online, and some Superior Court sessions were on zoom. In addition, she said, court personnel, the Sheriff’s Department, Police Department and the District Attorney were willing to talk with her and share information from afar.
“People didn’t even know I was out of town,” she said.
“To go through that and to see your son go through chemo and radiation, it was hard, it was really hard,” the editor/mother admitted. “That was one more time I was able to, at times, get away from that. I just worked.” She added that Steve has been cancer free for almost two years now.
Lurie-Smith didn’t just help care for her son, a friend attested. Her parents moved to Gray from Florida in 2004 and lived in an addition to her house until they had to move to long-term care facilities.
In response to a question regarding any events or stories that stuck with her, Lurie-Smith did not hesitate.
“I went to two executions. Neither was a very good experience, obviously. And,” she added emphatically, “it really changed my mind on capital punishment. I was not a proponent of capital punishment anymore after seeing that.”
Lurie-Smith was the media representative at the first execution, 10 years after the trial.
“I was in there when they were getting ready, putting in the IVs and all that.”
As to why she chose to do that, she said, “If that was what they were going to ask me to do, I felt like it was an obligation to my readers to report on it. So, I did that … and it wasn’t a pleasant experience.”
As to pleasant experiences, Lurie-Smith was asked about life away from the newspaper.
She laughed. “What would that be like?” She did explain she was a member of the Exchange Club when it was in Jones County and a former member of the Lions Club.
“The problem is all these clubs have meetings, and “I go to so many meetings with my job. I love all the people in the clubs … I told them I just can’t do it.” Maybe when she retires, Lurie-Smith added.
The grandmother said she does have a life, starting with her youngest granddaughter, Josh’s child.
“Lola is the light of my life, and I spend as much time with her as I can,” she shared with obvious pride.
Lurie-Smith said one organization of which she is an active member is the Jones County Library Board, and she noted that she has been chairperson for several years.
“Our library is wonderful, and Julie King has done wonderful things with it,” she offered. “The Jones County Library has become a community center, more than a library … They have a lot of good events at the library.”
Lurie-Smith believes her presence and contacts sometimes make a difference in the community.
“If I am in a meeting, and I hear a need of somebody, and I know of somebody that can provide that need, then it’s easy for me to make those connections,” she pointed out. “It may be a small thing, but it can lead to a big thing.
“I don’t feel like I do a lot myself in the community, but I feel like I am able to put people together for them to do a lot.”
Lurie-Smith also believes the hometown newspaper is important, even vital, to the community.
“The meetings I go to, the stuff that’s discussed at that meeting is important,” she asserted. “It’s more important to our folks than what happens in Washington as far as your day-to-day life. They decide how much taxes you are going to pay. They handle your drinking water.
“What can be more important than that?” she suggested. “People need to be confident when they turn on their faucet that they are going to get good, clean drinking water.”
The editor, one of the ‘bosses’, realizes writing articles is only part of the newspaper operation.
“I am only able to do what I do because of the support of the newspaper staff,” she affirmed. “Especially Jennifer Gibson, who has worked with me for over 20 years.”
Debbie Lurie-Smith is happy where she is in her life.
“I just feel like it’s an honor and a privilege to do what I do,” she declared. “I can’t imagine doing anything else. Everything that had to fall into place to make this happen is kind of amazing to me. How I got here … from working in a bank in Louisville, Kentucky to being the editor of The Jones County News ... It’s great.”
