Finality can strike in the most unusual of ways.

I had known since Tuesday evening that this would be my last week at The Telegraph, a wonderful friend that has served as a second home for what would have been 24 years in June.

But it wasn’t until Friday morning, when I was engaged in the most routine of daily tasks, that it suddenly became oh-so-real.

Since becoming editorial page editor six years ago, I have started each day by taking out my project planner and writing down the headlines of stories in The Telegraph – as well as other papers – that might serve as the source for upcoming editorials.

So there was nothing unusual Friday morning when I spread out that day’s edition of The Telegraph, plopped my trusty notebook onto my desk and prepared to start writing … and that’s when it hit me.

There was no need to do that today; I had written my last editorial a day earlier.

I wrote them down anyway.

Why?

Probably for the same reason that I treated myself to a glazed doughnut for breakfast once a week, a Filet-O-Fish sandwich and large fry from McDonald’s every Friday afternoon, and far too often wore the same-colored shirt the same day of the week.

It just seemed to be the right thing to do.

And I guess that’s how I hope to be remembered in the newsroom and in the community: as someone who always strived to do the right thing – the fair thing – even when I failed to achieve it.

Looking back, so much has happened in the past 24 years that it’s mostly a blur, but a few memories came flooding back to me last week from my days as business editor, city editor, managing editor, editor-in-chief and, ultimately, editorial page editor:

• Our watchdog journalism expose in the early 1990s that led to the shutting down of a Nashua muffler shop that was ripping off its unsuspecting customers.

• Our participation during the mid-1990s and early 2000s in Voters’ Voice, a collaboration with The Associated Press and other New Hampshire media organizations that was dedicated to covering issues – not politics – and brought everyday voters into direct contact with presidential candidates.

• Our initial attempt to reach out to readers by forming a Readers Advisory Committee, a dozen faithful readers who agreed to meet with us one evening a month for six months to discuss what they wanted in their local newspaper and whether we were providing it. That concept proved to be so successful that it led to the creation of Voter Advisory Committees and later an email-based Reader Advisory Network.

• And our editorial board sessions with candidates for public office, especially those seeking the highest office in the land. As such, I had the opportunity to meet three individuals who went on to become president – Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama – along with dozens of others who would not.

If you sense that the coverage of elections and public service journalism were important to me, then consider me guilty as charged. There are countless things we do in this crazy business, but providing readers with the information they needed to make an informed decision at the voting booth always was at the top of the list.

In closing, there will be many things I miss in the ensuing days: The daily sights and sounds of the newsroom. The extremely talented band of colleagues I have had the absolute privilege to work with since I arrived in June 1989. And the many people in the community I have come to know.

Now, ordinarily, Telegraph columns end with a standard tagline: our names, positions and how to reach us. Since that doesn’t quite fit here, I will sign off one final time with this:

Nick Pappas was blessed to spend the best years of his life as a staff member of The Telegraph.

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