If you read this column regularly, you might think the newsroom is all there is to this newspaper.

The newsroom is my domain. It’s what I know best, so it’s what I want you to know.

But there are many departments at the Anderson Independent-Mail: advertising, circulation, online and finance are among them.

And then there’s production, the blue-collar side of our operation. The intriguing side of our “plant.” The side people want to see when they tour our building.

This is Keith Dobbins’ domain. Pull up a chair and let me tell you about our 2007 Independent-Mail Employee of the Year.

The first thing you should know is that we never see Keith in a chair. He’s on his feet all day, and those feet never stop moving. His name is called constantly on the intercom system in our building.

Keith manages our distribution center. It’s where newspapers go after they’ve been printed but before they’ve been loaded on trucks. It’s where “packages” are assembled. A package is a “jacket” — or newspaper section(s) — that is stuffed with “inserts.” At all hours of the day and night, this assembly plant bustles.

A North Carolina native, Keith started at the Independent-Mail in 1982 as a part-time stacker. He became a skilled pressman and was promoted to pressroom manager in 1993. In 2000, he was promoted to production and facilities manager.

I worked closely with Keith a few years back on a print quality team and was impressed with how much he knew and how hard he worked.

A few years ago, I attended a newspaper technology exposition with three members of that team. On a long drive to Orlando, Fla., and back, Keith and I had a chance to get to know each other better. He was a fresh audience for my old newspaper stories, and he particularly enjoyed hearing about my Paul “Bear” Bryant adventures.

We still laugh about a moment when I thought we really bonded. After a Saturday night dinner, we went to our hotel rooms, agreeing to meet at 9 a.m. in the lobby. I had the keys to the company car, so I got up early Sunday morning to do something important. I was back in the hotel parking lot before 8 a.m., and there was Keith, panicking, thinking our car had been stolen. Then I pulled up, and for a minute he thought I had been out all night (wink, wink).

When I told him I had been to church, he blushed and laughed, sort of the way he blushed and laughed Tuesday when he was told he had been voted our employee of the year.

Flattered? He was embarrassed by the attention.

The next day, he was the first person I saw. He asked if we could print the paper early because of winter weather.

The following day, he was the go-to person when an air-conditioner in our computer room failed.

One server saved another server. All hail our employee of the year.