Hello Everyone! I am Harper Sparks and I have the honor of writing for the Tribune. This is an amazing opportunity and I cannot wait to see where GOD leads me through this experience.

You can live your whole life miserably, or you can choose to be happy. One thing I have learned in the last few years, your attitude is almost always your choice.

I used to fly in my dreams. Wait, don’t laugh or critique me until you know why that was important or used to matter. Now, you’re laughing for sure. But in life, the unexpected remark from someone can send you flying into insecurity and cut you down, and you don’t exactly know why it is, but the emotions rise just the same. When I had those dreams, I would put my arms out and rise like an eagle, soaring to the highest tree above the landscape of life and over the rooftops of homes and businesses. I then would land, stopping on the top of a branch, clutching the limb with my toes, and I would plan the next day’s activities which included planting friendships and being someone who could be a person who encouraged others, not tearing them down.

It has been just about three months since my friend Judge Joni Tidwell Haldeman left this place for a much better one. Her passing left a whole in the world that simply can’t be filled. This week I decided to recall our conversations and went back through some of the 12 years of messages I shared with her. I was quickly reminded of the deep wisdom that she possessed, and the often blunt and unabbreviated opinions that she held that helped guide me as a journalist and human being. Some were hilarious, some dead serious, but all memorable. What follows is a very small sampling, and I will share more another time.