VALDOSTA — The Valdosta Daily Times with the Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts hosts the nationally touring “A Conversation with America: PARADE Through the Decades,” an exhibit of photographs from the weekly Parade magazine.

“The Valdosta Daily Times is excited to be hosting this exhibit,” says The Valdosta Daily Times Publisher J.H. (Sandy) Sanders. “It is an opportunity to thank the community for its support of the newspaper, and we wish to thank the arts center for its continued contributions to the community.”

Earlier this year, Parade magazine returned to each Sunday edition of The Valdosta Daily Times after a decade’s absence. Parade magazine features stories on health, entertainment, slice of life and numerous other subjects. It also includes various columns, cartoons and features.

Beautiful, funny, and touching photographs from across the country and around the globe have been one of the regular features of Parade magazine through the years.

This exhibit includes some of the best photographs from the pages of Parade through the years. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this exhibit is the equivalent of a good book.

“The difference between a great photograph and a good photograph is in a great photograph you don’t have to read the caption to understand what the picture is about,” says Paul Leavy, The Valdosta Daily Times chief photographer. “Great photographs are timeless, with emotions, expressions, concepts and themes that words can’t describe.”

These photographs are from Parade’s Millennium photo contest. The exhibit has been traveling the nation for the past few years. Its previous stop was in Bluefield, W.Va.

To celebrate the return of Parade magazine to the pages of The Valdosta Daily Times, this newspaper arranged for this special exhibit to come to Valdosta. The Annette Howell Turner Center for the Arts agreed to house it. The exhibit opened this weekend and continues through Thursday with a free, public reception scheduled for Tuesday evening at the arts center.