Deck the halls with PRIME blessings

December can be a month of reflection, as we pause to embrace the holiday season and look ahead to another New Year. Reflecting on 2010, this certainly has been a fun voyage at the helm of PRIME. In case you missed some of our most memorable covers this year, PRIME has featured such luminaries as jazz giant Herbie Hancock, world-famous chef Anthony Bourdain, and Saturday Night Live alumni Jon Lovitz. We've taken readers to destinations across the globe in our special travel edition, and on area daytrips with our summer in the Berkshires preview and coverage of Brimfield's antiques attractions. Our annual Holiday Happenings listings in this edition (starting on page 5) are your ticket to the most exciting seasonal events. We also brought you the full story of Bobbie Rennix, a Springfield educator who overcame great hardships en route to earning second runner-up at the Ms. Senior America pageant this fall. Those stories made our product a unique leader in the print media marketplace. For the first time in nearly 20 years of publication, our magazine was the first-place recipient of an Independent Free Papers of America award this fall for editorial content. We also recently learned that PRIME took home two editorial awards from the North American Mature Publishers Association. Our February cover story on the Young at Heart group earned first-place honors, and our March profile about "Superfan" Ed Kijek took second place in the profile-writing category. PRIME stories ranked above a qualified field of entries from periodicals across the nation. It would be easy to take personal credit for these awards, but that would also be woefully inaccurate. There are so many people deserving of recognition: our design staff, managers, and dedicated crew. It's hardly sufficient thanks, however, let's tip our hats this month to everyone listed in our staff box. Something Rennix said to PRIME last month rings especially true in light of our accolades this year. She found out the hard way that success - even when measured by simply meeting one's own personal milestones - can sometimes be threatening to those around you. Whenever there's a blessing that comes into your life, there always seems to be someone who would try to diminish your accomplishments. The key is to persevere. Life is not a winner-take-all game. And there's certainly no high-score tally at the end of this journey. As wonderful as the past 12 months have been, we look forward to an even more promising 2011. Peace to all. Happy Holidays. And Happy New Year! Sincerely, Mike Briotta PRIME Editor mikeb@thereminder.com