I knew when I looked at the calendar of events compiled by editorial assistant Linda Simmons for last Friday that we were in trouble.

We take pride in being a local newspaper that gets out to cover all kinds of community events - the festivals, musical performances, benefits, museum open houses, etc. They're the kinds of stories that won't be picked up by the regional media, but they're important to the people who live and work in the area we serve.

Still, as hard as we try, we're frequently forced to make decisions about what we can get to and what we can't. It can get tougher in the spring and summer, when the warm temperatures bring increased activities.

We currently have four reporters covering news seven days a week, and unfortunately, I haven't figured out a way to clone them so they could be in multiple places at one time.

Believe me, I really wish I could on nights like last Friday. That night included a carnival at Emerson Park, a comedic performance fundraiser at Auburn Public Theater, the Auburn/Cayuga NAACP Freedom Fund Banquet, the “Our Idol 2009” show to benefit the Purple Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps, the season debut of the Auburn Chamber Orchestra, a solo recital at Cayuga Community College, and the latest performance of the Seneca-Cayuga ARC's FAME program.

We got to a couple of the events with a reporter and/or a photographer, and tried to make sure we had all the events in the paper in some form ahead of time so readers could make the difficult choices about what they wanted to do.

But I'm sure in the end we probably disappointed some people - and that's something we hate do.

To try to provide some form of coverage in situations like these, we encourage all people who call with requests for coverage to consider submitting photos of the event if we're unable to be there.

We love to publish these pictures on our community calendar page, and those photos get plenty of reader eyes.

These photos can be e-mailed to citizenfeatures@lee.net or mailed directly to Linda Simmons at The Citizen, 25 Dill St., Auburn, NY 13021. You can also feel free to stop by and drop them off in person - we're here every day.

Executive editor Jeremy Boyer's columns appear Saturdays in The Citizen and he can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 231 or jeremy.boyer@lee.net