Publisher's note: Sue Jane Sullivan passed away peacefully on the morning of July 25, 2026, surrounded by her family.
She spent a lifetime teaching us how to live: check your mirrors, love your people, take the trip, and shed a little light on everyone you meet along the way. The world is dimmer this morning without her. But light like hers does not go out. It was handed, deliberately and generously, to her daughters, her grandchildren, her students, her readers, and everyone lucky enough to cross her path. We are all carrying a piece of it now, and we know exactly who to thank.
Our prayers are with Julie and Emily, her grandchildren, Scotty and Sara, and all who loved her.
Her columns remain in these pages, right where she left them, for anyone who needs a little of her light. She would tell us not to grieve too long. She would tell us there are roads to drive, gardens to grow, books to read, sunsets to watch, and people to love. And she would be right. She usually was.
For Sue Jane
I met Sue Jane Sullivan because of a scholarship. She and her family started the McCleskey scholarship for graduating Rotan students, and my mother, Patricia Porter, retired business manager at Rotan ISD, was asked to help. My great grandmother, Meemaw Porter, was a McCleskey. So Sue Jane and I are probably cousins somewhere down the line. I decided to claim her either way.
One day she found out that Jeff and I owned the newspaper. She mentioned she had always wanted to write for one. Then she walked right into our office and introduced herself, and I thought she was the coolest person I had ever met. I still do. We soon were introduced to her brother, Scotty, and thought we would claim him also. He is pretty cool too. Must be genetic.
She was always going somewhere. Sue Jane did not do idle it seemed. She would breeze into our office on her way to a volleyball or football game or a One Act Play or a debate meet, or on her way out of town with the car packed and the playlist queued, off on another road trip to go see the country and report back to the rest of us. She traveled like it was a calling. She could quote Glennon Doyle, Arthur Miller, and the back of a Wheaties box in the same breath and make you want to go read all three for yourself. Every time she came through that door I learned something. And I was always in a better mood when she left than when she showed up.
One of the last times she came by, she asked me to take her new headshots. I cleared my afternoon. Not because headshots take an afternoon. Because Sue Jane was in my office, and I wanted to keep her there a while. Since 2019, her column has anchored our opinion page. It started out called Check Your Mirrors, after the years she spent teaching driver's education to fifteen-year-olds. That job gave her a nickname (Shotgun Susie), and a lasting respect for anyone who can survive a farm to market road at forty-five miles an hour with a teenager at the wheel. Somewhere along the way she renamed the column Shed a Little Light. I have thought about those two titles all week. Check your mirrors is where you start.
Look back so you can move forward safely. Shed a little light is where she ended up. Look back, then light the way for whoever is behind you.
I got to read it first, before anyone else in two counties, and I counted that among the great perks of owning a newspaper.
She could find the lesson in anything. A cereal box became a tribute to childhood literacy. A box of broken crayons became a lesson about the children who arrive at school already broken and just needing someone to love them. A stuffed rabbit became a meditation on what it costs to become Real and so many more...
She spent over 41 years in the classroom and never once stopped teaching. She just traded the classroom for a column and made students of us all.
Her mother, Lillie Mae, left behind a line of cursive that Sue Jane once shared with readers.
Truth will set you free, but first it will make you damn mad. It is a pretty good mission statement for a newspaper, and Sue Jane lived up to it every week, whether she was defending public school teachers against politicians who deserved it or gently reminding a room full of us that we have far more in common than not.
I told her more than once, after reading her latest submission, that she was my spirit animal and I stand by it today.
She was always cheering us on or offering interesting pieces of information along the way.
It meant the world to me every time. She always lit up when she talked about her girls and grandchildren and it was so fun to read about them in her column too.
On Saturday, her daughters Julie and Emily shared news on her behalf that Sue Jane has had a sudden decline in health and has been diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. She is surrounded by loved ones. The family is has asked for thoughts and prayers, and will share updates as they come.
I read that post and could not find a single word. I clicked the little caring emoji and stared at my phone for a good long while. Then I went and read everyone of her columns she has published over the years. I do not do well with this sort of thing. All I know to do is what Sue Jane taught me by example, week after week, which is to sit down and write.
So here is what I want her to know right now, in print, where she can have someone read it to her.
She made this newspaper better just by being in it. She made every person around her feel like her favorite, all of us, at the same time and I will cherish her words and lessons for the rest of my time on this earth. I want to be just like Sue Jane when I grow up, hit the road, spread a little light along the way.
We love you, Sue Jane. We are praying for you, for Julie and Emily, for your grandbabies, for family, and for everyone who ever got to sit in your classroom or ride in your passenger seat.
And here is a promise from your newspaper. Every column you ever gave us is archived in these pages, and it is staying there until Jesus comes back. Anybody who needs a little Sue Jane magic can open a back issue any week they like and find it, still shedding a little light.
Back in July of 2019, just a few months after she started writing for us, she wrote a column about how to live that I have never forgotten. So, I will let her have the last word. She earned it.
'Our one-way tickets are meant to be used to the fullest. Live now, through a phone call to an old friend, listening to some good music, working hard at your job, making peach preserves, growing a garden, reading a book, or making cast iron skillet cornbread with fried okra. Every day, make your living list and punch your ticket— and when the final destination shows up on the itinerary, just remember that all we are doing is relocating. I hear the new place is wonderful.'