Get the local scoop in your news weekly

How different La Conner and the western Skagit Valley is because a community newspaper is delivered to about 1,000 readers weekly. Stop, really, and consider how rare that is, how special and important at the end of 2021. You have your local weekly newspaper in your hands. Do you know how many people in Skagit County or the 39 counties in the state of Washington can say that? A lot fewer than could in 2020 or 2015 or 2010 or the year 2000.

The La Conner Weekly News is a rare bird because hundreds of newspapers have gone out of business the past 20 years, a tragedy accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.

It is increasingly rare, because the La Conner Weekly News is a strong, award winning and profit making newspaper. Weekly, and in this issue, through stories and photographs, it is keeping its readers current on arts, business, government, school, sports and Santa activities. Kentucky journalists decided 23 times last spring that our Weekly News staff were winners, among the best small circulation newspapers in the state.

Here is a way your community newspaper connects you to your community. Read the page 5 story on the Skagit County Historical Museum efforts to collect local items of interest – stuff from you – that are the real life stories of the coronavirus pandemic in the Skagit Valley, where we live. How many items have they collected to date? A handful. Not very much.

Here is betting that they will bring in more good stuff by the end of the month than they have all year. Why? Because you read about it on page 5 and you were nudged into action by your friendly neighborhood editor. That is not something all your friends and neighbors have visiting them every week. If you engage in your community by investing not so much – $60 a year: $1.15 a week – you make time and a willingness to pause and reflect and ground yourself in your community. That is what inviting your local newspaper in to your life does.

It is not just the editor or staff, writers and photographers – and the back of the house people – making this issue real. Readers engage and challenge fellow community members, as seen again in this issue’s letter page. The Weekly News reports on a proposed 20 unit apartment building but it is readers who are raising questions and urging their neighbors to pay attention and take action.

This democracy thing is not just about the First Amendment and freedom of the press. It is not just about voting or arguing or polarizing yourself or others. Newspapers succeed because the people who read them engage with each other, with leaders – elected or otherwise – and sometimes with the newspaper editor. Yes, find your name in the Weekly News because you took the time to share a fun fact or a serious concern with your neighbors through the newspaper. Rebecca Kerr did that, applauding another great American institution: her local volunteer fire department. Read her story on page 7.

Are you worried and frustrated that the town government bought and sold Hedlin Field without stopping for a year or two to discuss the possibility of turning it into a mini-campus of affordable cottages? And upset again now that plans for a three-story apartment building are making their way through the government process? Linda Talman is concerned. Her letter on this page says so.

Finally, this paper employs and pays 10 people throughout the year. It directly contributes to the town and county’s economy. It is a real business located in the town on its page 1 banner: La Conner. Its staff are working hard with pen and paper and camera in hand or behind the scenes laying out pages, updating mailing lists, getting invoices out. They answer the phone and answer your question when you call to ask about someone who died but you cannot remember all the details. That happened Monday.

Enjoy this week’s issue. Staff did, putting it out for you and your family, neighbors and friends. Like the post office, we are here to serve. And, like school teachers we believe in contributing and shaping the future of our community by talking to you about the facts, ideas and hopes you have in front of you, in your heart and on your mind.