Mt43 News - One Year of Publishing
 | Author:
Victor Sample
Vic Sample: MT43 News Treasurer |
Mt43 News - One Year of Publishing
Victor Sample
This week (July 7) will be the 52nd edition of MT43 News – one year of publishing a weekly newspaper. I never really imagined myself working on a newspaper and I am quite surprised to find myself deeply involved with one.
In March of 2022, I received a call from Nancy Marks about a meeting of a group of community members to discuss the viability of starting a new weekly Community Newspaper to replace the Broadwater Reporter. Over the next few months, there were a series of meetings discussing whether a new community newspaper was viable, the nature of the paper (Corporation, LLC, Non-profit) and who would be interested in actually working on the paper.
A large number of community members attended the meetings including Laura Obert, J.B. Howick, Jeff Ross, Nancy Marks, Laura Cater-Woods, John Hahn, Rachael Eliott-Brug, Linda Huth, John Hahn, Angie Janacaro and Kelli Morris. A great cross-section of people who are involved in the community.
In May of 2022, there was a formal vote taken to undertake a community newspaper called MT43 News (thank you Linda Huth) as a corporation. The mission of the newspaper was to gather and distribute factual, unbiased stories which affect the daily lives of Broadwater County residents.
That day a Board of Directors was formed with J.B. Howick (President), Jeff Ross (Vice-President), Nancy Marks (Secretary), Vic Sample (Treasurer) and Rachael Elliott-Brug (Director). J.B. Howick volunteered to draft the corporate bylaws, incorporate them with the MT Secretary of State office, obtain a FEIN from the IRS, etc.
MT43 News was incorporated on June 1, 2022, and we began the task of producing a newspaper. No one involved had any experience with publishing a newspaper!
And what a ride we have been on for the last 12 months!
Over the last 12 months:
• We have 380 subscribers and sell another 200+ papers a week at local stores and restaurants; giving us a circulation of about 600 papers a week.
• We have published over 1500 articles
• More than 150 community members have contributed articles, editorials and letters to the editor
• Over 150 people, companies and organizations have advertised in MT43 News
• We created 2 new jobs in the community
• We have a high school student intern that writes a regular column for us
• Eileen Clarke, Ellie West, Allison Kosto, Linda Huth, Pat Plantenberg, Dee Gannon, Mikayla Kraft, Eliza McLaughlin and Matt Nelson all regularly submit articles to the paper.
We never imagined how much effort publishing a newspaper would be. It takes 7 people working hard to get the paper out – and we could not have done it without the help and encouragement of Diane Chatriand and Alan Barta at the Helena Independent Record.
Of course, it has not been a smooth trip. There have been many challenges and obstacles to overcome.
Initially, we thought getting a USPS bulk mailing permit would be quite expensive. It actually was not overwhelmingly expensive – but the amount of effort it has taken was huge. After 8 months of working with a USPS representative (and much thanks to Tina Larsen and Sheila Roach at Opportunity Bank for their assistance), we received notice that the permit was approved. Yet at 12 months we are still operating with a “pending” bulk mailing permit.
MT43 News started with the goal of covering the entirety of Broadwater County. It is difficult to cover everything in the Townsend, Toston, Radersburg, Winston and the Silos area. Covering the Wheatland area of Broadwater County has been quite a challenge!
Even with more than 150 community members contributing articles, gathering the news of Broadwater County is a huge task. Nancy Marks is our Reporting Manager. Nancy attends nearly every county, city and school meeting, as well as almost every event in the community. Even then, Nancy cannot possibly do it all – she coordinates the reporting of our Correspondents: Dee Gannon, Mikayla Kraft, Matt Nelson and Eliza McLaughlin to ensure that we cover as much Broadwater County news as we possibly can.
With over 1500 articles published in the last 12 months by over 150 community members, it is a large task to edit all of the articles. Rachael Elliott-Brug, Linda Huth and Laura Cater-Woods have done a truly remarkable job of editing articles. It would be easy for the editors to become a bottleneck, but they flowed the work through remarkably well.
JB Howick took on the job of laying out the newspaper – and what a job he did. The MT43 News Board was extremely happy with the look of the paper! But, laying out the paper turned out to be much more difficult and time-consuming than we could ever have imagined. We experienced a lot of disruption in the look and feel of the paper as we experienced high turnover in the layout editor job.
MT43 News is very appreciative of JB Howick for training our current layout editor – Sarah Tallwhiteman. Sarah learned well from JB and is doing an outstanding job as Ad Editor and Layout Editor. We are very proud of the work she does and how professional the paper looks.
We would also like to thank the Broadwater County and City employees that contribute so much content: Commissioners Agendas, Commissioners Minutes, City Council Minutes and the Justice of the Peace get submitted to us every week. It would be impossible to cover Broadwater County news without them!
The first year is now behind us and we are all looking forward to year two. We could not do this without the support of the Broadwater Community. Thank you to all that have helped us be successful.
