Calhoun County is a contentious place; that's no surprise. Look at McClellan, a multi-billion-dollar asset with more land to develop than the fabulous fountain of gold and social uplift in North Carolina, the Research Triangle Park.

At McClellan, research doctors and scientists could also walk to work, which they can't do at the Triangle. One drug company CEO was so taken with the beauty of the place and on-site housing that he planned to make McClellan the research firm's world headquarters, but the state couldn't come up with the money to move its M.D.s and Ph.D.s from San Francisco.

We've baited a field with billions of dollars that would rocket northeast Alabama to a whole new economic, educational and social level, but we can't agree on who or how to start developing it.

Obviously, our Citizen of the Year isn't part of the problem; he's on the side of the angels (and The Anniston Star), and he's just as frustrated as we all are.

Now, why does this year's first citizen care so much? He wasn't even born here. As is often the case, our first citizen is not a native of Calhoun County, though you will agree that this person is not just one of us but also one of our most remarkable citizens.

Also, the recognition is as much for what he has accomplished this past year as it is for a lifetime of patient, highly important work for our county, its people and, literally, its future.

You will not find this person shooting baskets during lunch, running the track at McClellan or biking on the Chief Ladiga trail, but word is he was a pretty good high school tackle for an honor roll student. His coach, who played football at Jacksonville State, talked him into going to JSU, where he was a 1972 graduate in business. He went to work that year and he's still at the same place.

He has an important job, but the quality he consistently projects is … humility. He doesn't have a lot to be humble about. It is that very quality, selflessness, that has made his important work function so smoothly. If you created a committee composed of Aaron Burr, Patrick Henry, George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, he would have them working harmoniously together.

No ego has been so large that this year's Citizen of the Year couldn't, in a friendly way, channel inflated stubbornness in a positive direction. There have been, and still are, some personalities who have tested our honoree's patience to the limit. But give him some little construction project, sealing a crack in his driveway or fixing a leak in a judge's chambers or building a cabinet with an artist's touch and the steam of frustration just floats away.

You may be zeroing in on his identity by now. Our citizen of the year is the man who has tried to leave his job and enjoy an earned retirement, but duty called him back. As you no doubt know by now, he is the administrator of Calhoun County, the irreplaceable Ken Joiner.