If the newest mug shot on this page appears a mite frazzled, I apologize. I’m suffering from a bad case of discombobulation, and I suspect it shows.

Maybe you’ve had this malady yourself sometime in your past, and can sympathize.

For the past week I’ve been adjusting to life at a new newspaper. That means getting to know new staff members, new procedures, new deadlines, new community issues. Throw in a new office phone system, a new computer system and a new cell phone and you’ve got the makings of a perfect storm for the discombobulation of a new publisher.

And then, on Friday, I went to lunch with banker Jim Haller.

Jim is a walking, talking combination edition of Who’s Who in McLennan County, Dave Campbell’s Texas Football and the Waco Yellow Pages, all rolled into one. In an hour and a half, I figure I was introduced to approximately 56.7 percent of the residents of my new hometown, which added to the discombobulation factor exponentially.

I tell you all this to beg forgiveness if I disremember your name at the coffee shop Monday morning.

Thankfully, discombobulation is a temporary condition. I suffered from it 15 years ago when I moved from The Dallas Morning News to The Bryan-College Station Eagle. And 19 years before that, when I moved from the Longview Morning Journal to Dallas.

But enough about me. Let’s talk about your paper and mine, the Waco Tribune-Herald .

Yours, mine, ours

I say it’s yours and mine because even though it’s owned by the Robinson family, the Trib is really community property. A newspaper is the living, breathing chronicle and conscience of its community, which makes it part and parcel of the community itself. It’s truly a symbiotic relationship, and it’s the main reason newspapers are here to stay.

As long as there are lives to be lived, issues to be covered and stories to be told, there will be newspapers. No news organization can tell a story better than a newspaper, whether it delivers the story on paper or on the computer screen. That’s why newspapers’ Web sites are among the busiest on the Internet, and why broadcast news still quotes newspapers on the important issues of the day.

The Trib has long been a solid newspaper and a solid pillar of this community. What Robinson Media wants to do — and what I’ll work to do as your hometown paper’s ninth publisher — is help the Trib make the journey from good to great.

What that means is improving everything we do, from story and photo selection to design, print quality, advertiser service and community involvement.

It means not only covering the problems we face, as the Trib has done for 118 years, but looking for solutions to those problems. And then rolling up our corporate sleeves to help make those solutions reality.

What it means is making a deep commitment to not only covering our community, but embracing it with the hug of a journalistic momma bear. Celebrating our victories and mourning our losses. Accepting the fact that we won’t always agree, but insisting that we disagree agreeably. And always — always — calling ’em as we see ’em. Even when it hurts.

Thankful for every day

Going from good to great means reminding ourselves that both the community and the paper will have days when we’re riding high, days when we’re not, and days when we’re just a little discombobulated. And reminding ourselves to keep it all in perspective and be thankful for every day.

That’s what your neighbors at the Trib want to do with your hometown paper. It’s what your new hometown publisher wants to do, as well.

And so, after only a week on the job I can tell you this: I’m very lucky to find myself discombobulated in Waco, Texas.

It’s a great community. Let’s work together and make it even greater.

See you at the coffee shop.

Contact Trib publisher Donnis Baggett at 757-5761 or dbaggett@wacotrib.com.