The origins of the La Conner Weekly News

Once the Puget Sound Mail ruled the La Conner roost as the town's weekly newspaper, undergoing successive ownership changes from 1879 through and past Pat O'Leary's tenure, 1939-1973.

Alan Pentz started the Channel Town Press in 1976 and outcompeted the Mail, which closed in 1982. Pentz ran a commercial print shop for additional income. After his death in 1990, his wife, Audrey, took over for the next 16 years.

On Sept. 27, 2006, "We're Back!" was the lead page 1 headline, with Tim Dunlap as publisher, Wayne Everton as managing editor, Sandy Stokes as editor, and Cindy Vest as production manager. They saved the Channel Town Press from closing. Stokes and Vest became partners.

The La Conner Weekly News debuted April 30, 2008, with the page 2 masthead listing Stokes as managing editor and Vest as production manager.

By 2014 or 2015, they were ready to retire and put the paper up for sale.

On June 30, 2017 Ken Stern bought it, creating the La Conner News Publishing Company LLC and, with Stokes' advising, published the July 5 issue. On July 12, Stern was on his own, with Vest as production manager, a wage position.

Vest died in 2022. Stern put the paper up for sale that summer. This is his final issue, Dec. 18, 2024, his 389th, seven-and-a-half years after he started.

It has been a great run. If the hours were too long, the work was never too hard.

The Weekly News closure may not end the legacy of La Conner as the community with the longest continuous publication of a weekly newspaper in the state, 145 years, but that story is still unwritten.