Each year at this time, the Butler Eagle strives to give readers a comprehensive look at one particular aspect of the community that they wouldn't have time to explore in such depth on their own. The report comes in the form of the newspaper's Progress Edition - a multi-section endeavor requiring months of planning and effort by most members of the Eagle's news staff.

In 2004, the Progress Edition provided readers with a portfolio of county businesses, ranging from a company that crafts braces and artificial limbs for those who need support or for those who have suffered the loss of a limb, to a company that remanufactures outboard motors for racing boats. The 2005 edition, which was included with the regular March 22 newspaper, was titled "Duty Calls." It gave readers a close look at all aspects of emergency services in the county, and provided a glimpse of some of the people whose training and dedication results in the saving of many lives and much property each year.

While most people are familiar with their local fire department, municipal police department or the state police, the coordination among emergency operations might not be so well understood. Helping to provide such an understanding was one of the goals of Progress 2005.

Many people are aware of LifeFlight and the basics about what the emergency medical transport service is all about. However, prior to last week's special edition, they might not have been aware of the location of LifeFlight's bases and the fact that the service's helicopters operate within a 130-mile radius of Pittsburgh - or that LifeFlight has 47 flight nurses who each work two 24-hour shifts per week.

Readers might have been surprised at the scope of the state police commitment in Butler County to battling Internet crime, including child pornography, e-mail threats and identity theft. During an interview for a story headlined "Caught in the Web," Cpl. John Stepansky said he focuses about 90 percent of his investigations on child pornography.

In addition, this year's Progress report recalled those who gave their lives in the line of duty, and reported on how women have increasingly become part of the emergency services, how Butler Memorial Hospital keeps itself prepared for bio-terrorism and responding to disasters, how the Unionville Fire Department's dive team keeps itself prepared, and provided a glimpse of the county's 911 Center operations.

Progress 2005 is an edition that should be required reading for anyone interested not only in the county's emergency capabilities in general, but also from the standpoint of their own individual lives and well-being, as well as their relatives' and friends'. Over the course of coming years, emergency services will have to be mobilized on behalf of many of the readers of the special edition or people they know.

The edition is an encyclopedia of individual data and general knowledge about how to access emergency care and reinforces why people should have confidence in those services' ability, training and dedication to the valuable response, comfort and care that they provide.

In addition to appreciating those special individuals - paid and volunteer - who are part of the emergency services, Eagle readers also should be appreciative of the advertisers whose willingness to participate in the edition were instrumental in making it possible.

Those advertisers, like most county residents, have recognized and appreciated some of what the emergency services accomplish each day. But with the edition in hand, readers have had the opportunity to gain a much broader and more detailed knowledge and appreciation of what is being done, not only in the public eye but also behind the scenes.

That appreciation should translate to support of those emergency services in any way possible by people throughout the county.

"Duty calls" is not just a catchy phrase. For hundreds - if not thousands - of people each year in Butler County, it's the difference between life and death.