Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
One recent October day, I looked around and suddenly realized things had changed. No, it wasn’t the fact that since my recent marriage, I can’t seem to find where anything is located in the kitchen. It was newspaper-related, and it was an excellent change: We had a staff, a staff that is doing an exceptional job at their vocation.
As a result, our advertising has grown (please keep it this way and keep buying ads, Lincoln County businesses, please and thank you), our story count has increased and the number of physical pages we print each week is up.
And suddenly, my time that used to be devoted to trying to fill news and sports pages first singlehandedly, then doublehandedly upon our March merger with The Odessa Record is being filled with overseeing two excellent reporters, covering Davenport and Lincoln County happenings, helping man a now consistently present office and all the other ins and outs that come with the editorial life.
One coverage our reporters seem to have a passion for and talent toward is in the realm of human interest. You may have noticed Byrne Bennett’s fascinating article about Reardan’s Ed Brommer and his model tractors in last week’s paper, Ashley Parkinson’s comprehensive and inspiring feature of Odessa veteran Merit Wood in this week’s paper or my ramblings this summer about Peter Davenport’s missile silo near Bluestem.
Human interest stories draw a crowd, and locals love hearing about the unique activities, hobbies and accomplishments their friends, families and neighbors take to.
And now that our staff has grown, we have the time to tell those stories. To do so, we need your help.
Almost all human interest stories you see in the newspaper were recommended to us by a local who gave us a phone call, sent an email, talked to us at a local event or stopped us on the street. We now ask that you ramp up these efforts in order to help inform us of stories that need to be told via the aforementioned avenues, and we’re willing to have a conversation with you to discuss whether that is paper-worthy. We can get creative!
All four of our staff members are happy to hear any tips about any story worth telling in Lincoln County. However, for readers’ knowledge, generally stories in the Davenport/Lake Roosevelt area will be written by yours truly, Harrington and Odessa would go to Parkinson and Reardan and Edwall are likely to be penned by Bennett.
You might be seeing yourself in the paper one way or another, regardless of whether you’re featured in a human interest story or not. That’s because we are starting a weekly segment of the paper tentatively titled “Lincoln County Hot Takes.”
Each week, our staff will draft a common question and take to the streets to ask one local from each main municipality we cover that same question. I’ll traverse Davenport, Parkinson will head to Odessa and Harrington and Bennett will find a lucky responder in Reardan.
If you’re selected and willing, we’ll each ask you that week’s question, snap a quick photo and feature your response in that week’s community or opinion paper.
The questions will range in subject and could be light-hearted (What are you doing for Thanksgiving?) or more serious (Are you willing to share how inflation has impacted your family?) We won’t force anybody to give their “Hot Take,” but this is a way for more community voices to be shared.
As always, anyone is welcome to submit a 250-word letter to the editor or call with an offer to write a column if they prefer the written word as their avenues for expressing their thoughts.
— Drew Lawson is the managing editor of the Record-Times. Email him at davenporttimes@centurytel.net
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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