Good friends are difficult to find.

That's why I'm thankful to have a friend in my life like Ty Rushing, a former co-worker of mine at Iowa Information Publishers and Printers.

I started working in January 2014 for the Sheldon, Iowa-based publishing company while Ty joined the business during November of that same year.

We've been friends from the first day we met and become so close that our other friends tease us about our bromance.

Being such good friends with Ty made the decision to move away from Sheldon last year all the more difficult for my wife, Christina, and me.

I had worked with Ty twice at Iowa Information during my six-plus-year stint with the company.

We both started as staff writers for the business, which prints multiple newspapers and other publications across the Midwest.

Ty left Iowa Information in 2016 to work as the business reporter at the Sioux City (Iowa) Journal, while I continued my career in Sheldon.

He returned, in 2018, to Iowa Information as the managing editor, which I was extremely thankful for – both personally and professionally.

When I think about it, it's easy to see why Ty and I get along so well, starting with the fact we've both enjoyed careers working in newspapers.

We're also both natives of the Midwest – he's originally from Kansas City, Kansas, and I grew up in Omaha.

Ty and I are both fans of the Kansas City Chiefs and Royals, which have delighted us during the past decade with championships.

We sat next to each other when we worked at Iowa Information and bounced story ideas back and forth quite often.

He and I also traded terrible jokes and puns, during work hours and outside of the job, and some of our wordplay would end up in stories when appropriate.

Those joke battles still happen when we hang out in person as well as on Twitter, where they can go on for hours and include multiple people getting in on the action.

To borrow from the column Ty wrote about me when I left Sheldon last year, he and I have been through a lot together in the six plus years we've known each other.

Ty was a witness at my legal wedding ceremony with Christina, delivered a speech at our vow renewal and held our daughter Hazel a day or so after she was born.

When Ty was in a car accident in 2018, Christina and I didn't hesitate when he called and asked us to come and pick up him from the hospital he had been taken to.

There's also a northwest Iowa tubing trip Ty, Christina and I went on with a couple of other friends in 2016, that turned into quite a tale, but that's a story for another day.

For Ty's take on our friendship, please visit Iowa Information's website at http://www.nwestiowa.com and search for "Rushing: Mahoney leaves his mark on paper."

One other thing Ty and I have in common is we've both left full-time newspaper jobs during the past year.

I left my Sheldon-based staff writer position in June because Christina and I purchased a house and moved to Bloomfield, to raise Hazel and be closer to family.

I've become a stay-at-home dad and occasionally write stories – and now a column – for the Summerland Advocate-Messenger.

Ty left his Sheldon-based managing editor position in December and now will work in corporate communications in the Sioux City area.

While Ty leaving newspapers is a blow to Iowa Information and community journalism in general, I'm happy for him.

It also means he lives about an hour closer to Hazel, Christina and me, so we'll hopefully get to see him more often.

I actually hung out with Ty on Saturday, as it was his birthday and I wanted to help him move some boxes and other items from Sheldon to Sioux City.

Anyway, I'm thankful to have Ty in my life because, again, good friends are difficult to find.