I spoke to a friendly group of people at the Albany Historical Museum last night. The speech was mostly about our new Web site and its impact on The Monroe Times, and what some of our future plans for the site are.

But one other topic was raised, and that was our upcoming special section commemorating Monroe's 150th birthday. We cultural elitists like to use the word sesquicentennial, if we can say it without stumbling.

The Times will publish a special section on June 11, just a few days before some citywide celebrations are planned, including the annual balloon rally. Our plan is to reprint stories from newspapers throughout the years of top stories and events in Monroe's history. We also plan to print reproductions of the corresponding front pages. Both, we believe, will give readers an interesting look at not only historical occurrences in Monroe, but also how newspapers covered them in their day. Some of the writing styles are interesting on their own in how they differ from today's!

We also will be looking at some of the events planned for the rest of this year in Monroe, and finally may ask some people to get out their crystal ball and tell us where they see Monroe 10 years from now.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions on what we can do with the section, I'd welcome them!