The Tidewater News is gearing up for its annual Progress edition, which traditionally comes out in February and focuses on the community.

The theme for our 2012 edition is “25 Reasons We Love Western Tidewater” and that’s where our readers come in.

We plan to write 25 stories about the people, places, events, clubs, organizations, churches, institutions, natural resources and whatever else makes Western Tidewater a great place to live and visit.

We would love for you to submit some ideas. I have asked everyone at The Tidewater News to come up with some thoughts, and got some good ones, like Ruritan clubs, Camp Family Foundations, We Be Jammin’, local libraries, Franklin Mustang football and Rock Church.

So, if you have any ideas, please send them to gwen.albers@tidewaternews.com or call the office at 562-3187. As always, I’m working on a tight deadline.

n Ninety-four-year-old Meta Johnson Cutchin last week graduated from Computer Kindergarten for Adults at the Ruth Camp Campbell Memorial Branch of the Blackwater Regional Library in Franklin.

She successfully printed a short memo and ventured onto the Internet.

A resident of the Village at Woods Edge in Franklin, Meta said she wanted to take a computer class for a good while.

“I kept promising myself I will go to the college (Paul D. Camp Community College) and do it,” she said.

n Sharon Ewell Foster, author of the new “fact-based” novel “The Resurrection of Nat Turner, Part One: The Witnesses,” takes her Nat Turner Truth Tour to Word of Life Bookstore in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, Oct. 8. She hopes to make contact with Hollywood.

Foster’s novel challenges the accepted history of one of America’s most notorious historical figures. A slave, Turner led an 1831 revolt in Southampton County that left more than 50 whites dead. As the 180th anniversary of his hanging approaches, Foster feels the world is ready for a new perspective on Nat Turner, one from an African-American author.

Foster’s five years of research included interviewing descendants of those killed, as well as Turner’s family, review of Gov. John Floyd’s original diary, and analysis of trial transcripts and related documents. She said she uncovered proof that discredits the primary historical document on Nat Turner, “The Confessions of

Turner,” written by Turner’s professed attorney, Thomas Gray.