It’s hard to believe it’s already November. While November is most known for election time and Thanksgiving, for us at the Tribune it also marks the start of preparations for our annual Progress special section.

Each year around this time we begin planning out what will be in this section and have kickoff meetings both building-wide and as departments.

Pretty soon, you can expect to see staff members out in the community conducting interviews, taking photographs and selling advertisements for this section.

Progress is our largest special section of the year, and it takes time to produce. We will work on it section by section for the next few months until it will finally publish on Feb. 26.

I’m happy to announce that this year our theme is Community in Action. We have so many people in our community who are doing good things both in the spotlight and behind the scenes, and we hope to highlight some of those people.

Were in not for these people who work so diligently — many of who do it all as volunteers — we would not have such a nice place to live.

In addition to highlighting all of these people who love their community and love their fellow community members,  we are looking for people who have an interesting story to tell, who have overcome a feat or who have found success either personally, as a business or in some other fashion.

Progress is the chance we have at the Tribune once a year to have dozens and dozens of pages of nothing but inspirational and positive stories. We hope you will help us find some great stories to feature.

If you have someone who you think deserves a little recognition, who has a great idea, who is doing something great or who in their own sphere has transformed part of the community, please let me know!

You can reach me by phone at 379-3433 or by email at sarah.stultz@albertleatribune.com.

I know I am looking forward to meeting new people and being inspired by your stories.

The Progress section reminds me every year why I love to live in Albert Lea and the Freeborn County community.

The people are one of this area’s greatest assets.

Sarah Stultz is the managing editor of the Tribune. Her column appears every Tuesday.