|
It's a new year for The Sylva Herald
No, it's not an April Fool's joke.
This edition really is the beginning of a new year for this newspaper.
The Sylva Herald, which traces its origins back to the 1926 beginning of The Ruralite, turned 78 this week. Our March 25 edition was Vol. 78, No. 52, and, by way of indicating our anniversary, today's paper is labeled Vol. 79, No. 1.
Consistency is one virtue we can certainly claim as our own: During each and every week of the previous 78 years, there has been a Herald (or a Ruralite) for the people of this county to read. And each edition has included news of local people and the banner headlines - births, marriages, deaths - of their lives in addition to the political forces that have shaped Jackson County through a Depression and five wars.
While we report on our elected officials and their discussions and decisions, a look at any recent paper would confirm what all of us in the newsroom know: We depend on our readers as much as they depend on their paper arriving each Thursday.
A successful weekly newspaper has to be a shared endeavor, and we need all of our readers. To paraphrase a former first lady, it takes a community to put together 52 newspapers each year.
It takes all your family news - engagements, weddings, anniversaries, awards, graduations and scholarships - and it takes your church, club and neighborhood news. We (news staff) provide the local government coverage by attending almost every meeting and work session county and municipal elected leaders schedule.
How do you fit into this equation? By sending us information.
We promise to print all announcements of upcoming events such as singings, homecomings, benefits, decorations, club meetings, special programs and community forums the week we receive them - as long as they make it into the newsroom by noon on Monday. Getting information to us on time helps us plan and affords us the time we need to do our best work. Due to space constraints, we can only announce each item one time; however, in most cases you can decide whether it appears one or two weeks prior to your event.
Your submissions can be typed or handwritten. They can be brought by our Main Street office or mailed, and we have a drop box for your convenience after hours and on weekends.
Feel free to e-mail your announcements to us. Send all notices intended for publication to our general newsroom mail box (news@thesylvaherald.com). There's no need to send it to anyone's attention - the "news" address is the one each of us checks for timely information that belongs in the newspaper.
However,you choose to contact us, please include a daytime telephone number in case we need clarification. We consider all information carefully before it is printed, and there is never a charge for any news item.
Bear in mind that due to our ongoing effort to provide you with a more organized newspaper, we don't always use a particular item the week we receive it. We hold most student recognitions, whether awards, graduation, dean's list, honor roll or class field trips, to publish together on a "School Days" page. Health-related items appear every other week on our "To Your Health" pages, and Cooperative Extension and homemakers' club news is grouped on our "Farm and Home" page.
If you have an idea for a story, or know of an interesting person in your community, call and tell us about it. Things that interest you most likely will interest us, too, and we enjoy hearing from you.
We've made some technological leaps recently (a number of our pages are now sent to the press electronically), but we want to assure you that our 78-year-old values are not about to change.
Our priority remains publishing information about Jackson County people, places and events. Though we've added "Regional Notes" to share news of activities in close-by counties and expanded "Things and Stuff" to enable us to include brief notices about area events, achievements of former residents and relatives of current residents, we are proudest of the amount and variety of in-county news we include in each week's edition.
Putting out an interesting weekly newspaper in today's age of instant information is a challenge we welcome and work hard to achieve. But we realize it's all of you who make it possible.
We also feel that we succeed because we offer detailed information about Jackson County that's simply not available anywhere else.
We're writing this county's history one week at a time, and we appreciate your support as we begin the journey of reporting our 79th year's worth of news.
|
