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Change is in the air

Drew Munro / From the Editor
Grand County, CO Colorado

This time of year in the east end of Grand County is the calm before the storm, or what I think of as the deep breath: It’s as if the countryside is filling its lungs one last time before winter takes hold and the final vestiges of fall give way to the rush of the ski season and holidays.

Yet, it’s quieter this week around Granby than usual at this time of year. Fewer moving trucks and Subarus with mattresses strapped to the roof are evident, and young people making their seasonal nests in Granby-area apartments seem to be fewer and farther between.

It appears some of those seasonal workers have migrated southeast with the disappearance of resort housing and the shuttle in Granby.



That is but one of many changes which took place during the summer and another transitional fall that are only now beginning to manifest themselves.

The same holds true here at the Sky-Hi News.



Readers may have noticed the absence of our three community columnists: Cathy Walton-Smith, Janet Day and Laurie Henderhan. As fate would have it, all three, for their own reasons, parted ways with the newspaper during a short span of weeks in September.

Janet left the Fraser Valley for an editing job at Newsday on Long Island, N. Y. Laurie decided to spend more time with family, and Cathy is coping with an ongoing family medical situation.

All will be missed.

This unexpected vacuum set in motion a series of reassessments and, ultimately, changes here at the Sky-Hi News.

Many of the responsibilities formerly addressed by the three departed columnists will now be handled in-house by staff. However, another change was necessary in order to make that possible.

Longtime columnist and sports correspondent Larry Banman will no longer be a regular contributor to the paper. We’re sorry to see Larry’s dry wit and insightful columns go, and we remain hopeful that we will be able to use him as an occasional contributor in the future. But that will be contingent upon budget conditions as 2011 unfolds.

All of which means that more than ever we will be relying on readers to be engaged with the newspaper. We need your input, your news tips, your contributions and information about your communities.

We enjoyed great success with reader contributions during the fall high school seasons, particularly for coverage of the Middle Park High School football team. We’re hoping to repeat that success during the winter sports season.

Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have ideas about covering any of our teams, in either end of the county. We’d love to hear from coaches, parents or students interested in covering a sport.

The same goes for news. We can’t cover news events if we don’t know about them. Our email addresses and phone numbers are printed on page 2 of every edition of the Sky-Hi News and Middle Park Times. Let us know what’s noteworthy in the place you call home and we’ll try to share the information with our readers.

Now we have more readers than ever. Another change that occurred during the fall was a substantial increase in our online readership. That was particularly evident during the Church Park Fire, when visits to skyhidailynews.com spiked dramatically.

The website is another way to contribute to the community discourse hosted online and in our pages. It also serves as a portal to the world, literally sending news from Grand County to points around the globe every day.

We welcome all manner of online contributions, from video and photos to blogs and story comments. Drop by skyhidailynews.com for a visit; you may be surprised by what you find.

– Drew can be reached at (970) 887-3334 ext. 19600 or at dmunro@skyhidailynews.com


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