My first paying job was as the Little League baseball reporter in my small south Texas hometown when I aged out of playing. For the princely sum of 10 bucks a week, I endured often boring games thrice each week in Texas heat and humidity before biking home in the dark and handwriting stirring accounts for that week’s paper. I’m sure readers jumped to those reports before learning about that week’s city council meeting. I was our town’s sports section while the high school teams were on summer break.
I’ve had an affection for small town papers and journalism ever since. Why are they important? We have myriad outlets for state, national and world news. But those papers don’t have reporters at our town trustee, county commission, library board or RFTA meetings. They don’t cover Mountain Fair, Dandelion Day, Día de los Muertos or Potato Day. They haven’t reached out to bridge divides with the large Spanish-speaking population with whom we share our enviable lives here. They don’t nurture the next generation of journalists by mentoring student writers and reporters. The Sopris Sun does all of that.
And The Sun is good at it, regularly winning awards and the admiration and envy of small-town newspaper producers across the country. We can be proud of our local paper.
All of that costs a lot of money. Even sharing resources with other Valley outlets, like Aspen Daily News and KDNK, there’s no way that advertising revenue can cover production costs. There has long been an unwritten agreement among Valley publications to provide local news to our lucky audiences for free. The Sun does not propose to change that.
So The Sun needs community support beyond paid ads. There’s no charge for listing your events in the calendar, posting obituaries, sharing your literary efforts or expressing your opinion in letters. The Sun is our newspaper. Please join me in nurturing it. If every reader supported with just $100 each year, it would be in strong financial shape. Not everyone can do that, but many of us can do much more. I hope you’ll make a commitment to regular ongoing support and even name The Sopris Sun as a beneficiary in your will. Together, we can keep our Sun shining forever.
Executive Director Note: Colorado Gives Day is on Dec. 10. Contributions made through ColoradoGives.org on this day (or scheduled in advance) will be enhanced by a generous incentive fund from the Colorado Gives Foundation and FirstBank. Give today at www.coloradogives.org/TheSoprisSun