Louise Frazier, the writer of the Review’s Dry Creek Flashes column, marks her 66th year of report the comings and goings in the Dry Creek Valley this year.
Frazier told the Review recently that she inherited the column from her mother-in-law.
“I started helping my mother-in-law sometime around 1948. I married in 1939, and she was writing the Dry Creek column  then. I helped her out with the column for a while, but when she got sick a few years later, I started writing it.”
She said she kept her mother-in-law’s name on the column for some time after taking over.
“I just kept her name on it for a long time. I don't even know when I started putting my name on it. The name was changed to Dry Creek Flashes a few years ago. It was just called Dry Creek Community before that. I don't know who changed it, but it's pretty good. I like it.
“In April I will have lived in the valley for 75 years. I married in 1939 and came down here to Dry Creek. Before I came here I lived on Mcminnville Highway. My daddy was the minister at Whorton Springs Baptist Church. It was just a wooden church then.”
Frazier said her 66-year streak has only been broken briefly for sickness.
“When I taught at Smithville Elementary I was out for a month to have emergency surgery once. I missed some columns then. I write pretty constantly. I think that's about the only time I’ve missed.”
Many Smithville natives will remember Frazier from her days as librarian at Smithville Elementary.
I set that library up in the fall of 1965, and I retired and 1983. We had never had a library as such. I was the first elementary school librarian in the county. We had a collection of books before that, but you couldn't really call it a library. I was the first full-time elementary school librarian in DeKalb County. We had a good library, and we had some good students. I had everyone of them every week, and they were all my kids.
Frazier said her tenure has been surprisingly free of controversy.
“I've had a few to call me up and tell me maybe they thought they told me somebody was there for dinner who wasn't, but I don't really get negative feedback much. If they do they don't tell me about it.”
She thinks her choice of subject matter helps keep her out of trouble.
“I'm going to write about the cranes in the valley in this week's column. I know better than to write about politics. That stirs people up. I have had somebody call and say ‘Well, you didn't write about the persimmons this year,’ but they like to read what folks do in the community. A lot of people tell me they read it. I'll talk to people who read the column from Arizona, Las Vegas, Murfreesboro and McMinnville, to name a few places outside DeKalb County. I do like my Review, and I enjoy reading the entire paper. A lot of people tell me they get the Review to read to Dry Creek Flashes, and of course that makes me feel good.