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One year ago, on March 3, 2020, the front page of The LaGrange Daily News featured dressed-up locals jumping into West Point Lake as part of HYPE’s annual Polar Plunge.

A big check from AirForce Heating and Air was the main photo on the page, as the company gave a donation to a Callaway Middle School student. No face masks needed.

Another story featured the upcoming state of the county address. Little did we know the state of the county, and the world, was about to change drastically.

Our editorial page that day — this same space — featured an opinion from the newspaper staff, asking that people not panic over COVID-19. At that time, there were no known cases in Georgia but two presumptive cases in Florida, and we were trying to prevent panic.

Looking back — that was roughly 10 days before everything seemed to shut down — we knew so little then.

Now, there have been 5,556 total cases in Troup County alone and 162 total deaths.

We believe the virus is (hopefully) on its way down, thanks to the vaccine and the sheer number of people who have been infected so far, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important to reflect.

We’re about to hit the one-year anniversary of a terrible time in our country and in our community. Schools were closed, restaurants were forced to shut down and most importantly, lives were lost.

We understand that people are tired of hearing about COVID-19, and we’re right there with you. But we also don’t want to lose sight of what a year ago was like in our community.

We’d like the opportunity to write stories about people who lost their lives to the virus in honor of their memory, so if your family was impacted, please feel free to reach out to us at news@lagrangenews.com.

We also want to tell your other COVID stories. What did you miss the most? Was there a vacation you had to reschedule for this year (or another year)? Did you open a business and have to figure out all the unknowns? Did you close a business? Did you get married in the early stages of the virus?

We want to hear your stories, and we know there are a million of them related to COVID-19.

The pandemic is far from over, but we’re all past the uncertainty we were all facing a year ago at this time. Thank goodness for that.

March 2021 will hopefully be a lot different than March 2020.