People who have spent even a little time working at a newspaper can attest to the transient nature of the business. People come and go all the time.

It is one reason why people who are lifelong newspaper workers know so many people in different states. When I started as an editor at the Herald & Review in 1996, I knew a lot of people who worked for Lee Enterprises, our parent company, because there were Lee papers in the states I had worked in - Iowa, Nebraska and North Dakota.

When former City Editor Tim Crosby was here, we used to compare notes about our travels because he had both worked at several papers. We were amused to learn we had a former colleague in common. Tim knew him when he was working in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and I knew him when he worked in Columbus, Neb.

Even an e-mail sent to a companywide e-mail list can make a connection. Not long ago, I sent an e-mail to a list and got an answer from someone in North Dakota who asked if I was the Dave Dawson who had been the editor of the Valley City Times-Record. Turns out the inquisitor, now an editor for a Lee publication in Bismarck, was a reporter for me there in the early 1980s.

Stories such as this are legion and the people you get to know are, shall we say, a diverse group.

You remember people who have passed through your career arc for two reasons. One, they were really good at what they did. Or two, they had some kind of personality quirk you couldn't forget.

Some people you remember for both reasons and Mike Frazier, who spent his last day as a reporter at the Herald & Review on Thursday, is one of those people.

Mike has produced a prodigious amount of work since he strolled into the building at 601 E. William St. six years ago. Mike ostensibly was here to fill in for two reporters who were going on consecutive maternity leaves. But it soon became obvious that he was someone we needed to hang on to. An opening developed while Mike was a temporary employee and we quickly moved to keep him here.

I will always remember Mike because he was always eager to work on a story. If he wasn't juggling five or six stories at once, he was looking for more to work on during the pauses. He endeared himself to all editors when he once told me that it was a good day when his name was on three or four bylines in that day's edition.

Over the past six years, he has covered a lot of issues and a lot of faces in Decatur city government. He took rather complex issues, analyzed them and produced stories that people could understand.

But as much as anything, I've enjoyed Mike's sense of humor and his eclectic tastes. Armed with a degree in religion and philosophy, he is equally conversant about South Park and the latest book by Christopher Hitchens. But you have to love a guy who doesn't hide his love for Star Wars (I don't know anyone who has more lightsabers than Mike) or Transformers and is excited about just buying the DVD set of the first three seasons of "Kung Fu."

I promise you that all of this combined will serve Mike well as he embarks on the next phase of his career as a law student.

Managing Editor Dave Dawson who has worked at six different newspapers in four Midwest states can be reached at ddawson@herald-review.com or 421-7980.