'Forever Blue'

It's not exactly a secret that these are tough times for the newspaper business.

We find ourselves trying to do more and more work, with fewer and fewer resources.

Yet every once in awhile you are reminded of how incredibly important what you do for a living is - and the effect it can have on the community.

That was the case Sunday when we delivered an extraordinary profile of the Cunningham family of Newtown.

Clinton Cunningham was a Newtown police officer.

In fact, he had just been named the township's Police Officer of the Year.

Just about a month ago, he dropped off his wife and four kids at a local park and then headed to the gym for a workout.

It was the last time they would see each other.

Cunningham suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He never regained consciousness and died at Bryn Mawr Hospital.

But the story does not end there.

This is a story about resilience, about how a family's faith is pulling them through the worst possible circumstances.

And how the law enforcement community and Delaware County is rallying behind this officer's young wife and family.

It started with a phone call from Darby Police Chief Bob Smythe. He asked me if we would consider doing a story on the fundraiser being planned for the family of Sgt. Cunningham.

I told him we would, but I also asked my ace police reporter, Rose Quinn, to see if the family and Cunningham's widow would be willing to sit down and talk with us.

It's a funny thing about these kinds of stories. People react to these kinds of tragedies in different ways. Very often families politely decline. Others are more than willing to tell their story.

Quinn got interviews with Cunningham's parents, his brothers, and also was invited into the Cunningham home by Kelly Cunningham to talk about her husband and the father of their four young children.

It's an extraordinary look at a very special family.

And not just the Cunningham family, but the extended police family that forms an indelible bond in so many of our communities.

We called it "Forever Blue."

You can read it here.

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