From a grateful heart — thank you to the Estes Valley community

I am thankful for so many things, but I want to reflect on several things about life in Estes Park. It is said that a picture is worth 1,000 words and Dick Mulhern’s cartoon today captures a sentiment that so many of us who call the Estes Valley home can relate to.

We are blessed to live in a gorgeous, picture-postcard mountain town that millions of people want to travel to every year just to experience a few days of our day-to-day backdrop. We may complain about the lines at Safeway during the high tourist season but how many grocery store parking lots have views of the Front Range?

Sometimes we have to pause and put it all in perspective.

I am grateful for the people of the Estes Valley who have encouraged and supported the founding of the Estes Valley Voice.

In early “what if” discussions over chips and margaritas in March at Ed’s Cantina while watching Caitlin Clark play basketball, photojournalist Dawn Wilson helped to pick the name for a new, hyperlocal, independent, journalist-led news publication. We kicked around a list of options, but “voice” captured a vision for the publication as a vehicle to record the community’s stories.

We also talked about the format – should the EVV be a print or digital publication? For many reasons, it was decided that printing on paper is the past and publishing in pixels online is the future.

More than 80% of people read their news online today. Putting resources into printing on newsprint is not an efficient way to spend resources. By the time the news is written, then laid out for press, then printed, and then distributed it is history not news.

From the get-go, Jana Sanchez got on board as a business consultant, and she brought in graphic designer Christopher Ratliff to provide branding guidance. After more than a dozen iterations, we landed on stylized images of the mountains and the Big Thompson for our logo. Thank you Jana and Chris.

We met with several others for consultation and guidance and before filling with the Secretary of State as a public benefit corporation, I wrote a purpose, mission, and values statement. Journalistic ethics are important in the media, and I wanted to build the Estes Valley Voice on a clear, articulated foundation.

We needed some computer and platform help and Jim Jensen with A through Z computing solved many under-the-hood hiccups and the team from Newspack – Megan and Steve my assigned onboarding people – held my hand as I learned all the whistles and bells of publishing on a state-of-the-art platform. Thank you.

Early on Suzy Blackhurst wanted to get on board. Suzy has a professional background as a copy editor, news reporter, editor, and also a background in advertising and marketing. We clicked as friends and also as colleagues.

Barb Boyer Buck also expressed early interest in the endeavor. She has a strong background as a news reporter, writer, and features editor. She has a passion for the Estes Valley and her writing covers civic affairs, environment, and community stories. After the holidays she will be doing some stories about immigration for the EVV – what are the issues and concerns for people in our area who are here both with and without documentation, what are their rights, what should businesses, landlords, and schools do should the authorities show up with and without a warrant? Barb’s recent story about a spate of car thefts resulted in the generous offer of a car to a group of seven immigrants from Ukraine who depended on one of the vehicles which was stolen.

Both Suzy and Barb bring a passion for storytelling to our publication. Thank you.

Soon other writers stepped up to offer their skills including Sarah Present, Harrison Daley, and Omayra Acevedo who have done feature stories for the Estes Valley Voice. Omayra’s two-part series on homelessness in the Estes Valley resulted in members of one church having a conversation about how they could step up to do a soup kitchen and another woman offered shelter this winter to the person featured in our story who lives in a van.

Writers believe in the power of storytelling, and it is heart-warming when we get to hear that our stories have made a difference in someone’s life, or that they brought focus to a community problem, or that they brought light to a problem within a taxpayer funded government organization.

Lincoln Roch, a journalism student at UC-Boulder, introduced himself to me at a Colorado Press Association conference in August and quicky talked his way into doing some stringing for the EVV. He will come on board as an intern next semester. Thank you, Lincoln.

Hank Lacey is a retired lawyer and a journalist with a passion for court, legislative, and environmental stories. Hank is also a former city council member of a down valley community, and he brings a great perspective to the process of Colorado politics and civic governance. He has become a valued colleague and friend. Thank you, Hank.

Terry Rustin is a psychiatrist who practices in the field of addiction and behavioral medicine. He is also a journalist who has brought wisdom and gravitas to our writing team. I shared with Terry some of my family’s journey with addictions and he listened with care and asked insightful questions. Terry has written articles with a medical perspective and also features for the EVV. We have been talking about some stories for the New Year including a five-year retrospective of the COVID pandemic. The onset of COVID began almost five years ago. Thank you, Terry.

Elisabeth Sherwin, a former San Francisco Examiner writer and editor, has joined us to do book reviews. Elisabeth teaches memoir writing at the Community Center. I want to come up with a name for her book review column, maybe Sherwin’s Shelf? What do you think? If you have any thoughts, let me know. Thank you, Elisabeth.

Dawn Wilson has now written a few stories for the EVV and we have a few more on what publications call the story budget. In the weeks ahead she will also be helping us with editing and publishing duties. Thank you, Dawn.

Early this past summer Dick Mulhern joined us as an editorial cartoonist. Dick’s cartoons uniquely capture Estes Park blending a bit of photo work with digital illustrations. We could not be happier. Thank you, Dick.

Our podcaster, Brett Wilson has been recording many of our stories, along with his wife Melissa. Our podcasts can be found on all of the major audio platforms. Next week, we will publish a feature story on Brett, a musician with the Blue Sky Mountain Band, who lends his voice to audiobooks and voice narrations with the Rocky Mountain Channel. Thank you, Brett, and Melissa, too.

We took on an administrative manager this fall, Sandra Torres. She came to the U.S from Peru as a J1 and married an Estes Park high school graduate. She has a degree in tourism and hospitality and has worked at the YMCA. She is so organized, and we are over the moon to have her on our team. Thank you, Sandra.

We also have an ad manager – and yes, we would love to have you as an advertiser or a sponsor of one of our news pages, please call Daren Stratman-Krusemark at 301-310-3101 or email him at daren@estesvalleyvoice.com.

With more than 2,000 people on our newsletter list and with more than 30,000 page hits a month, last weekend we had 8,000 page hits alone following our story on the plane crash on Storm Mountain, we have what is called a “proof of product.

And as a local newsroom, we are able to cover local news nimbly. We were the first news outlet at the rescue and recovery staging site, and we were there more than an hour and a half before any other organizations were on the scene. We hope you will consider supporting the Estes Valley Voice and our journalists with your advertising. Thank you, Daren.

We want to give a shout out to our marketing intern, Tessa Ring, a junior at UC-Health. Tessa will be in Italy second semester, but we have enjoyed having her on the team this fall. Tessa has written two stories for us, she helped develop our advertising program, and has helped us shape our Colorado Gives campaign which we will roll out next week.

The Colorado Media Lab is our fiscal sponsor for a 50-50 match. We can raise $5,000 and earn $10,000 to support local, online news reporting. Thank you, Tessa, for leaning in with us. When you are back from Europe if you want a summer marketing gig, let us know.

Thank you to the people of the Estes Valley who have allowed us to tell nearly 300 stories since we launched at the end of June.

And thank you to all the people who have supported us by becoming a paid subscriber or super subscriber.

While none of our stories are behind a paywall because we believe that the news that affects you should be accessible to everyone, a free press does not mean that journalism is free.

A free press is one that is free of government interference. A free press is also an independent press.

None of the members of our citizen editorial board—Deanna Ferrell, Reed Woodford, Jim Jameson, Andy Brittan, and Sibyl Barnes—are advertisers. While advertising is an important and necessary source of revenue, we are independent, and journalist led. Our editorial board serves as a sounding board for us they d not dictate our content.

As a public benefit corporation, we want to serve the public good. We sponsored two community events, the showing of Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink, a film about the changes and challenges facing journalism, and an event we called Civility in the Public Square. And after a showing of Don Colacino’s film Trusted Sources, we had a panel discussion with Mayor Gary Hall, Elisabeth Sherwin, Rev. Elisabeth Jameson, and Vanessa Otero, the founder of the Media Bias Chart to talk about the role of the media in political discourse.

We also got to serve as the media sponsor for the Dementia Together symposium held at the Community Center. All three of these were amazing opportunities for us to engage with the community. And we have so many stories we want to tell in the weeks and months ahead.

My family is about to sit down for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. We have three of five of our adult kids home, and one girlfriend. The stuffed turkey is still in the oven; my mother-in-law’s “famous” dark sweet Bing cherry gelatin – dubbed Nana’s Jell-O, is chilled; my grandmother’s candied cranberries are ready; my daughter’s sister-in-law’s amazing creamed corn will be fixed here in just a bit; the classic green bean and crunchy onion casserole is prepped; and two pies—one pumpkin and a to-die-for pecan – have been baked for the feast.

I am very blessed and grateful for family, friends, and so many comforts. I am grateful for the Estes Valley community and for the EVV team. With a grateful heart – thank you all.