One Year Anniversary presentation at Hometown Helena
 | Author:
Nancy Marks
Nancy Marks: MT43 News Secretary and News Editor |
MT43 News was invited to take part in a "Hometown Helena" event at the Montana Club in Helena.
We made the event a Townsend Update with Nancy Marks and Vic Sample speaking about MT43 News; Jeff Langlinais spoke about Rotary; Laura Obert spoke about Fall Fest; John Hahn spoke about BCDC and Julie Dooling spoke about the importance of Community Newspapers to the Legislature in getting information out to the Montana Communities.
The following is Nancy Marks' presentation about MT43 News on the eve of our 1 year anniversary:
Thank you Emily for that special introduction.
Thank you for allowing us to present to the businesses of Helena. I will begin by thanking the businesses of Helena for supporting our new newspaper by advertising in it.
While Townsend area folks don’t see themselves as being a bedroom community of Helena there is no doubt we are an integral part of the Helena community. And as a separate town, we very much appreciate that we have such close access to Montana State Government offices, and to good shopping nearby. So many Montana towns are miles from either. Thank you for that.
Mt 43 News’s one-year anniversary publishing weekly is July 14. They said it couldn’t be done! Most new small weeklies fold before that one year rolls up. We cover county commission and city council meetings. The four-day school week has been front and center for District #1 School District. We’ve followed the story closely. School sports have been a big part of our paper along with theater and arts in Townsend.
We are proud that we have made two new paying jobs in Townsend, helping the economy. We also pay our writers and have a high school intern whom we pay also. It’s been a great ride with fabulous people to work with who have the chutzpah to put themselves out there in the form of articles and columns. And photos! We have lots of photos of people. We have more photos of exciting events.
We help Helena and the Independent Record Print shop which prints our paper weekly. What a gifted and dedicated group of people that shop has! Diane Chatriand, Alan Barta and his crew and Mike Farr bent over backward to help us get started. Keep in mind that NONE of the people who agreed to jump into building MT 43 News had ever worked for a newspaper! Our layout person was a paraprofessional at the school and moonlighted cleaning the post office in Townsend!
The greatest gift to MT 43 News has been the board of directors who believe in the vision of hometown news. They never faltered last winter when we were in between layout persons, or when the money started to run out. They bring to the table years of experience in technology, legal work setting up our business, and running our books. And the connections: Several board members are Townsend natives who know everybody. That can’t hurt!
Although we will never cover state or Helena news, we cannot take the place of regional news coverage. However, we appreciate the need for unbiased and fair coverage of all events and business in Broadwater County. We will continue to enlighten our readers about businesses in Helena and Townsend. We will continue to offer the information in one place – MT 43 News - in print and online. Thank you for your time.
