“You’re simply the best. Better than all the rest.”
If you were listening to the radio at all in 1989, you likely heard those words in the song “The Best” by Tina Turner. And, you are likely singing the song to yourself right now. You can thank me — or curse me — later.
But, what does it mean to be “the best”? Certainly, the answer is a matter of opinion. In fact, it is 100% opinion. Even so, being “the best,” by definition, means “excelling above all others in a particular area, offering the greatest advantage or satisfaction.” It often refers to “achieving the highest level of quality or performance compared to others.”
I can’t argue with that.
Many of you are familiar with the acronym SEO, which stands for “search engine optimization.” It is a service some companies use to help their specific products or services show up higher in internet searches. Some say that’s cheating. In many ways, I tend to agree. A better approach than paying to make your product or service look better is to have a great product or service to begin with and then let it organically rank high in the search engines. In a way, that is what we have done with our Best of Guthrie County readers poll. You can’t buy your way into winning. You have to earn it.
We started the poll last year and had an incredible 471 votes cast from readers in 82 categories. This year, the number grew a whopping 36% to 642 votes. And, we don’t pre-load our poll with suggested answers. Each question requires a fill-in-the-blank answer. That makes the process more difficult on our end to tally, but we think it is the only fair and accurate way to conduct a poll such as this.
Also this year, we added an event to formally announce the winners. It was an invitation-only experience with only the top-three vote getters in each of our 82 categories invited. We held this formal Best of Guthrie County event at the Guthrie County Fairgrounds on Sept. 9 to a maximum-capacity crowd.
We are pleased to now share the results with each of you, too. You will find them in this issue of Lake Panorama Times, as well as the upcoming September issues of Guthrie Center Times and Panora Times. We will provide links in our twice-weekly Times Vedette email newsletter, too.
When you get a chance, I ask that you not only congratulate the winners of our 2025 Best of Guthrie County readers’ poll but also seek out their products or services and buy locally whenever you can. Then, you, too, will understand why they are “simply the best.”
Have a great month, and, as always, I thank you for reading.
Shane Goodman
Editor and Publisher
Lake Panorama Times
641-332-2707
shane@gctimesnews.com