Working here at the LaGrange Daily News is a bit like being part of a large and somewhat quirky family. We laugh together and cry together. We celebrate successes and face failures with a steely-eyed determination to do better next time.

On Friday, we lost a central part of that family. As we arrived, one-by-one we learned of the passing of Julia Dyar, who was so much more than a columnist for all of us.

For some of our newer family members, Dyar will be remembered for the way she whole heartedly welcomed them to LaGrange. For those who have been with the paper a little longer, she will be remembered for the stories she told from her impressive life. A small part of that was writing a column for the LDN for more than 23 years.

Even now, some of the archived volumes of the LaGrange Daily News sit on the same desk where she poured over those volumes each week searching for interesting tidbits from years past. Everything is at the ready as if she would return this week and begin to take notes the same way that she did on Thursday afternoon, when we last saw her.

Sometimes she would share particularly interesting stories as she reviewed the archived papers with their crinkly, slightly yellowed pages. Every now and then, she would come across a piece that she wrote back when she was working for LaGrange College or that she remembered and just wanted to share.

Julia Dyar’s impact on LDN is more than we could cover in a dozen articles, but we can say without a doubt that her memory will live on for years to come in both the archived pages she so studiously reviewed and in our hearts.