In the summer of 1997, when Nick Benton asked me to consider writing a weekly column for the Falls Church News-Press, I doubt that either of us could have anticipated that, more than 26 years later, both the newspaper and the column would still be going strong. I had been Mason District Supervisor for only 18 months, and Nick was looking to expand the paper’s coverage to “Greater Falls Church.” Since Mason District had three or four times as many Falls Church addresses as the City of Falls Church, the potential symbiosis was clear.

Nick’s request was completely unexpected, so I sought advice from others about whether I should embark on such a journey. I clearly remember the advice I received from Vic Gold, then a Lake Barcroft constituent who was an author and an occasional columnist for the Washingtonian magazine. Vic said yes, I should accept Nick’s invitation, but he added that I should have someone else (staff?) write the column for me since I would be too busy to do it myself! I followed the first half of his advice, but determined that, if my name was attached to the column, I had better write every word myself. More than 1300 columns, and 750,000 words later, I can say, for better or worse, I wrote all my columns. It is the most disciplined thing I do: at least 500 words to Nick by 5:00 p.m. every Tuesday afternoon.

Over time, the columns focused on more than “greater Falls Church.” Mason District has about 120,000 residents, including Annandale, Lincolnia/Alexandria, and a bit of Springfield and Fairfax, so some focus was on Mason District as a whole. And there were many times, especially after 9/11 and the more recent dystopian Trump administration, where my focus went way beyond Falls Church. As a political scientist and long-time observer and participant in elective politics, the seismic shifts of political thought and action call into question both the health of our fragile democracy and the motives of those who wrap themselves in the flag in the name of protecting American rights and values. Whose rights and whose values? A few years ago, a reader took me to task for writing such “negative” columns about Donald Trump. Apparently, he had read a couple of columns that summer, and was quite upset. I went back through all my columns that year (there probably were 25 or 30 by that time), and wrote back to him, thanked him for being a reader of the column, and that I had written about Donald Trump exactly four times that year. His chagrined response was apologetic.

As an elected official and not a trained journalist, I was surprised when I was invited to speak to a journalism class at George Mason University. They had lots of questions – how did I come up with ideas about what to write, how much research did I do (not much, frankly), whether I get paid to write the column (I don’t), my thought process when writing, etc. I told them about writers’ block, that sinking feeling when a column is due and all you have is a blank computer screen in front of you. Sometimes the writing is slow to come, and other times there is so much to say that the column is done in less than an hour. The challenge is to try to make it as interesting to the reader as it is to the writer, and I suspect I may have failed on that front at times!

Last year, I thought I might like to put some favorite columns into a book, and I reviewed all 1300-plus columns across the years. Although the book idea still is in development, the topics range from the exotic to the mundane – terrorism and safety, diversity and immigration, women’s issues, the environment – with some county budget and Covid thrown in for good measure. Political and Mason District columns topped the list, which should not be surprising.

As I sign off on this last column as Mason District Supervisor, I want to thank Nick Benton and his staff for encouraging me to step outside of my comfort zone and embark on a decades-long journey of opinion writing. Thank you to my staff, too, who proofread each column and sometimes gave me ideas when the well seemed dry. And I want to thank the readers of FCN-P. You are the audience; without you, a column would simply be a rough draft, possibly destined for the circular file. Thank you for the opportunity to share thoughts these many years. Happy New Year, and keep supporting your local newspaper. It’s all about community, our commonalities, and our shared future, for all generations.

• Penny Gross is the Mason District Supervisor, in the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. She may be emailed at mason@fairfaxcounty.gov.