Ruralite Cafe: Published 11/08/01

By Lynn Hotaling - Associate Editor

You want something in the paper? Send it.

Staring down at my meat loaf and mashed potatoes, it occurred to me that a lot of you may not know just how important you are to this newspaper. While you may not think much about the Herald before it arrives in your mailbox every Thursday (or at your favorite store each Wednesday night), all of us down here at the newspaper office think about you. We work hard to put this paper out every week, but we couldn't do it without your help. To paraphrase a former first lady, "it takes a community to put out a newspaper."

It takes all your family news - engagements, weddings, births, 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 our elected officials hold - no easy feat these days with different boards scheduling sessions on the same nights.

There's nothing mysterious or magical about having your information appear in The Sylva Herald. All you have to do is send it to us. In an effort to provide 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 extension and homemakers' club news is grouped on our weekly "Farm and Home" page.

So where do you fit into this equation? You send us news. We print all announcements of upcoming events such as singings, homecomings, decorations, benefits and special church services the week we receive them - as long as they are at the Herald office by 2 p.m. Monday. Getting all the information for a given issue on Monday helps us plan each paper 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 the event.

Your news items can be typed or handwritten. They can be dropped off or mailed, and we have a drop box for your convenience after hours and on weekends.

Now that we're online, feel free to email your submissions. Send notices for publication to our general newsroom email : news@thesylvaherald.com. There is no need to send it to anyone's attention - the "news" address is the one we always check for timely information that belongs in the newspaper.

However you choose to send us your information, 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. 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.

While we are happy to be making some technological leaps, we want to assure all of you that our 75-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" 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. We only wish we had room for everything.

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.

Thank you very much.

Back to Archive: 11/08/01.