By Staff
About 25 members of our staff gathered recently at the Millennium for some great food and an opportunity to talk about our ideas for next year's Horizons edition.
That's right. Horizons 2008. We'll begin work early in October on our community's annual yearbook, which will publish in late February 2008.
It's a monumental effort for every department of our company, but I'm sure most here would tell you it's a labor of love.
The ideas from this year's story planning meeting are cause for excitement.
We've got a number of new faces in our advertising department – the majority of whom are recent college graduates who have come home to build a career. They are natives of the communities our newspapers serve, graduates of high schools here – one from Brandywine, two from Niles and one from Dowagiac – who bring a wonderful, caring, home-town perspective to our company.
Without giving away too many secrets, here are some of the things you can look forward to in Horizons 2008:
– We're shooting this year for lots of reader interaction. We plan to revisit a section we did about 10 years ago, in which we asked our readers to send us their fondest memories of growing up in our community, including photos they have from the past.
We got some wonderful entries, lots of heart-warming, interesting stuff. It made for some very good reading then, and I'm sure this year's submissions from readers will, too.
– We plan to take some cues from readers who actively post messages on our website's readers' forum. Our internet readers have been debating who in our community makes the best hamburger. We're going to put their favorites to the test and see who comes away as our community's favorite. Keep reading for more details about that contest.
– Another idea taken from postings on our readers' forum is a "where are they now" feature, focusing on people from our area who have made a name for themselves, as well as some of our high school valedictorians from years ago.
There's much, much more in store, but I don't want to give it all away.
Suffice it to say, our readers have something special coming their way in February!