We’ve just about wrapped up our first full school year running The Eudora Times. It’s been a year of some great successes covering the community.
Since we began publishing in spring 2019, our team of KU journalism students has covered 250 stories for Eudora, most of which would have never been told otherwise. Our recent grad tab honoring the Class of 2020 was also a huge social media success that shows why having a local newspaper matters.
We won five awards in the Kansas Press Association contest this year. Our reporter Riley Wilson was a finalist in two categories in the Society of Professional Journalists college competition. We’ve added a few more reporters, who are getting invaluable experience learning how to cover a community.
We also feel that we have provided an important service to the community during the past eight weeks of the pandemic and, in turn, have had a great opportunity to meet so many more Eudora residents.
That being said, the newspaper will again go dark this summer.
Even before the pandemic hit, we knew that we would not have the financial resources to be a 12-month publication.
We are thankful for those who have made financial contributions to us, especially those who have donated more than once. But we will need 10 times the donations before we can consider becoming more of a full-fledged publication.
If every resident of Eudora gave even $3 a year, it would be amazing what we could do.
Until then, we will remain a newspaper that only operates during the school year.
You will see a few more stories from the team this coming week. It’s possible we can dispatch a reporter to cover a handful of critical matters during the summer, such as City Commission and School Board meetings and any potential graduation activities.
But, for the most part, our pages will otherwise go silent until mid-August after Friday.
It’s hard for us to think about all of the great stories that will be missed in the next few months, especially at this critical juncture in history. But like every business across the nation right now, we have to think about what we can afford.
We are committed to returning in August, however. We’re thrilled that Chris Fortune will be joining us as sports editor. That is a critical gap that we’ve been trying for months to fill.
We also will have more great reporting back from Lucie Krisman, Sydney Hoover and Cami Koons and hope new reporters will join us, too.
We wish Riley Wilson the best as she heads to law school. We will also greatly miss Raymond Forstater, who filled multiple behind-the-scenes roles for The Eudora Times, most prominently as our newsletter editor.
Our last e-newsletter will run Wednesday before that, too, goes dark until late summer.
So, Eudora, it’s not goodbye, but see you later. Please consider donating to us at this link so we can continue to expand our coverage of the community during the next school year.
Teri Finneman
The Eudora Times
eudoratimes@gmail.com
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