You have heard it before, “Every picture tells a story.” And what a story 2020 has to tell.

We bring to you, in the pages of this issue, a number of photo packages made up of pictures taken by the staff of The Newtown Bee from January 2020 til the end of the year. What a difference you will find between photos from January through March, before the reality of a pandemic set in, and those taken after the mid-year. From April through the start of June, as The Bee took a print hiatus, we were grateful for photos submitted by residents to share at newtownbee.com as they hunkered down, relearning how to do school, work, and play.

Associate Editor Shannon Hicks devoted some of her personal time to photographing the images of Newtown in the early days of the pandemic. You will find on pages 12 and 13 the signs of hope and encouragement that lined the streets and bobbed from front yards, the empty streets, and reminders of new rules to which we all learned to attend in our daily lives.

Once our reduced staff returned in June, staff photographs depict fewer close-ups of the people in our stories, as we practice physical distancing while still capturing the spirit of the town. Long lenses are our new best friend. You’ll find several of our photographs from 2020 on pages 9 through 11.

COVID-19 had a heavy impact on human life, even in our little village. On page A-3 we honor the memory of notable deaths in Newtown in 2020, though every life, whether lost to COVID-19 or other circumstances, is one that we will miss in the tapestry of Newtown. We mourn with those who, because of this pandemic, have been unable to find closure for those losses in the close comfort of friends and family.

Schools have also faced a challenge, first adapting awkwardly to the final weeks of the 2020 school year through remote learning; then through the efforts of parents, students, and administration, finding ways to safely celebrate the many milestones that mark those final weeks of learning. Hybrid learning for some and a few weeks of in-school learning for younger students heralded the start of the fall school sessions, before staff absences and an uptick in Newtown’s positive COVID numbers bumped uncomfortably upward. Remote learning filled the days of families and students, beginning with the Thanksgiving break through this new year. During those days, when our education reporter Eliza Hallabeck would normally have had her plate full of photographing events in person, we once again found ourselves sequestered away from school activities.

Still, Newtown remains, for us, a photogenic town.

Every picture tells a story. We hope you will enjoy looking through the images of 2020 presented in this issue. Find your story there.

We look forward to a happier New Year, and wish all of our readers continued health and wellbeing in 2021.