Writing briefly is the most difficult assignment in journalism. That’s one of the reasons awards are given annually for headline writers, who capture the essence of a story in under 10 words, with wit or brilliance if possible.

Writing about the Herff Farm falls in the category of “difficult.”

For starters, there is no way any narrative can improve on that of the master chronicler himself, Ferdinand Peter Herff, a surgeon and grandson of Ferdinand and Mathilde Herff, who started the Texas branch of the family.

Ferdinand Peter’s greatest contribution, from a historical perspective, is the prose in his two-volume family history, “The Doctors Herff: A Three Generation Memoir,” written over a five-year period at the end of his life. Every paragraph sparkles and captures his zest for living. He died in 1965.

The volumes were published by the Trinity University Press in 1973. Laura Barber, his editor, describes the gifted surgeon as having the “soul of a poet, tenacity of a scholar and verbal skills of a writer” and offers a moving introduction in which she states that she came to know Ferdinand Peter intimately through his manuscripts and made difficult editing choices as she believes he would have wanted.

Bravo, writer and editor.

One editor from my past used to pace about the newsroom, muttering: “Deadlines, people, deadlines. We are not writing the Gospels.”

Those words came back to soothe me as I faced slashing not just sentences but entire paragraphs and partial pages of my first draft. The challenge was knowing what could be omitted, but to determine that, the entire story has to unfold.

And from that perspective, it seems that a new chapter is writing itself now.

With the passage of the Esperanza development agreement on Feb. 12, city leaders committed to a new wastewater treatment plant. The most prized location, they said, was near the confluence of Menger and Cibolo creeks. A willing seller has offered property near the Cibolo Nature Center and the Herff Farm for a new facility. So far, so good.

But as View reporter Jonathan Nolte reported in our April 3 edition: “Carolyn Chipman Evans of the Cibolo Nature Center is still concerned that the placement of the plant will compromise the area’s historical and natural value.”

Nolte also reported in this week’s edition that at Mayor Dan Heckler’s open house on April 1, “several advocates for the Cibolo Nature Center asked that wastewater treatment infrastructure not compromise the historical and natural integrity of the area. Bob Webster requested that the mayor pledge not to allow pipes for the plant to pass through the nature center.

“Heckler said that he could not oblige that request at that moment but expressed interest in preserving the CNC as a part of Boerne’s historic heritage.”

Many individuals enjoyed the Herff Farm since Ferdinand Herff took title in 1852. Now that the space belongs to the community, under the stewardship of his great-great-granddaughter Chipman Evans, everyone must take a stand.

A public forum concerning the purchase of land and construction of the sewer plant will be held on April 17 from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. at the Boerne Community Center at 820 Adler Road. Don’t miss it.

Ferdinand Peter wrote of the aftermath of an Indian raid in 1888: “A lone arrow protruding from the main gatepost supplied a frightening affirmation of the closeness of the family’s brush with peril. Tied to the missile was a white feather…the tribal sign of immunity.”

Can Boerne bring the metaphoric “white feather” to the dialogue once more?