Welcome to our premiere issue

I moved with my family to Fayette County ten years ago this June from a suburb in northwest Atlanta so our youngest son could attend the Joseph Sams School. Though my wife grew up in Peachtree City and we still have family there, I didn’t know much about the area. I had witnessed Peachtree City’s golf cart paths and admired the bucolic fields in Tyrone and I knew the great Ferrol Sams was from Fayetteville.

But, outside of that, the county’s reputation was a blank canvas for me.

But, I learned a lot quickly.

The first time we went grocery shopping, my wife and I were both shocked.

People said hello. People said excuse me and thank you. People were friendly.

We were not accustomed to that.

And thus began our introduction to Fayette County, a community I fell in love with immediately.

Throughout the last decade, I’ve seen the county grow and change, but the fabric of friendliness has stayed the same.

However, the last several years I’ve seen a gap in coverage of our community by other news outlets. Finding engaging features and human-interest stories has taken a step backwards. Of course, finding positive stories in general hasn’t been helped by the Internet and social media where the focus tends to be on national news, national politics and tragedy.

So, I founded fayettelifeandbiz.com. Our goal is to reflect and serve the under-served areas of Fayette County. We want to focus on arts and entertainment, business, food and dining and, most of all, the people. We don’t plan on covering breaking news, hard news or crime. There are other news outlets in our county available for that information.

As we begin this journey, we ask you to join us. Send us your story ideas, your events or your photos. Interested in writing? Please contact us. Have a submission for photo of the week? Send it to us. And, of course, we’d love to have you advertise. You can reach us at mwm@fayettelifeandbiz.com.

Thanks for being part of the journey.

Best,

Mark Wallace Maguire