Ted Pease, who edits the popular journalism blog “Today’s Word,” identifies himself as “Professor of Interesting Stuff.”

He’s my hero. Or, at least, he’s one of them. I like his mind set.

Ted’s real title is chairman of the Department of Journalism and Communication at Utah State. I feel sure there are things in his daily routine that aren’t all that, well, interesting. Every job has its share of the mundane, the ordinary - maybe even a smidgen of drudgery.

But Pease keeps himself interested by focusing on what’s interesting.

That, in a fashion, is what I am about to do, too.

As you may have read in Wednesday’s edition, I plan to retire next month after more than 31 years with LaGrange Daily News. It’s not that I don’t find it interesting to take your calendar of events item or listen to your complaint about the comics or the crossword puzzle. As editor, that comes with the territory. Interesting or not, if it’s important to you, it needs to be important to me.

But time has come to do more of the truly interesting things - and less of the day to day. I’ll miss hearing from most of you, but I won’t miss the long list of things that are important to me as editor, but not as Andrea.

Of course, I can’t fully retire. The part of the job I really love is writing, and I hope to do enough of that to keep from driving the man of the house crazy.

I’ll continue writing my column - though likely just once a week. And I will go back to where I started, as a part-time feature writer. A lot of you have good stories that haven’t been told yet. I want to help tell some of them.

I considered calling myself “Editor of Interesting Stuff” - that’s what I aim to be.

But that also implies that I’ll be here, in the building, editing the interesting stuff that our hard-working staff turns out. That might be confusing. Dan Baker will be doing that and doing it very well, I am confident.

So, for now, I’m going to think of myself as “editor at large.” (Not to be confused -please, please - with large editor). It’s not perfect, but Editor at Large of Interesting Stuff is too long.

In newspeak, being editor at large means you have no specific assignments, but rather work on whatever interests you. You contribute content but don’t take part in the nuts-and-bolts editing or managing on a regular basis.

In other words, I’ll still be into words. But the buck won’t stop here any more.

To those of you who have already called or written with kind words and good wishes, I say a heartfelt thank you. I’ll miss you as much - maybe more - than you miss me. I expect our paths will cross, often, in the community. I’m not going away.

Oh, the man of the house and I hope to travel some - there are countless places I want to see. But most of the time we’ll be in our back yard or close to it. There’s nowhere on God’s earth I’d rather be.

Still, after spending all or part of four different decades at the LDN, it’s impossible to leave without reflecting a bit on the experience.

Don’t worry. I’m not about to break into a chorus of “My Way.”

I’d like to think that, as best I could, I did it the right way.

Whether or not my career has been a success really isn’t for me to say. And traditional “success” has never been all that important to me.

What has been important is that I spent my working life doing a job I care about with people I care about in a community I care about.

That’s been good enough - no, way more than good enough.

Thanks, y ‘all.

Readers may contact Andrea Lovejoy at alovejoy@lagrangenews.com