Part of our job as the community newspaper is to get a bunch of faces in print every week. We try hard to go to a variety of events to take photos and use them in every edition of the Lovell Chronicle. When it comes to picking which photos we use, one of the factors we base our decision on is how easy it is to see the faces of the people in the photos.

Sometimes a daunting task is figuring out to whom those faces belong.

Last week was no exception. With the eight Boy Scout photos, a group shot from Lovell Elementary School and numerous other pictures, it was a tough production day on Wednesday. It truly was a flock of words.

We try to write down everyone’s name when we take the photo, but sometimes that isn’t possible. Sometimes we snap our best shot, and then a few kids get re-arranged before we write down their names. Some of them might mumble when they tell their names. Sometimes they even try to trick us for a joke. Or some just don’t look the same as we think they usually do, making us second-guess ourselves: “She doesn’t wear glasses, does she?”

So, once the photos are laid out and ready for print, our proofreaders go to work, comparing the page with our notes and with class lists provided by the schools, the phonebook, team rosters or whatever resources we can get our hands on. Still, sometimes the spellings in these different documents don’t match up, or the person is unlisted or new to the school.

We make calls to relatives, run across the street to a business where an employee is a friend of the family, a member of the same church or just might be able to point us in the right direction. It helps being in a small town to be able to do this type of investigating.

Proofreaders have to check spellings of seemingly common names, mostly because of the creative spellings that families have come up with when naming their babies. It must be an attempt to give their children a unique start at life, with their name spelled Kahtrinah, Jowey, Braanden, or Steaphon.

However, we inevitably get a few of these names wrong. We haven’t received any complaints about the Boy Scout spread, so maybe our hard work paid off. Or maybe people understand what we do and know that a few mistakes are unavoidable.

Either way, I just wanted to express to everyone our appreciation for the help in identifying the multitude of photos every week, and if your name ever ends up printed incorrectly, we do apologize.