Another year is coming to a close. I’m working on the 52nd edition of the Emery County Progress for 2017. Next year 2018 will mark the 118th birthday of your local newspaper. I haven’t been here for the 118 years, but I have been here for 18 years now. During those years, it is interesting to think about how things have changed. My first assignment at the newspaper was to cover the play Wizard of Oz at the high school. I had a pretty old school digital camera, the SD card was huge and I had the storage capacity of 18 pictures and that was with the smallest size photo setting.
The crazy thing was I thought that was plenty. In comparison during the run of Elf the Musical at Emery High last week, I probably took more than 500 photos. I went to the dress rehearsal, a performance and they did a couple of scenes from the play at the assembly at the high school for the Sen. Hinkins award. I take usually 300 or more pix at each ball game. Of course, only a few can get into the newspaper, print edition, but on line I have started putting more photo galleries with the upgrades to our website that launched this past year.
There is one thing I’ve been wondering about, as I look through previous editions of the paper, in previous years, and we had a lot more weddings and missionaries in the paper. I think people are still getting married and going on missions, but there’s been a decline in getting them in the newspaper.
I know social media is great for getting the word out about an event or activity, but the part that concerns me is that some of the history of our county is being lost. A permanent record which is searchable is a real benefit to our community.
I love going through the old papers and seeing the weddings and how people change over the years. Don’t forget to get your weddings and missionaries, scouts and other recognitions to us. It’s fun to look back in a scrapbook of newspaper clippings with your kids name and picture for doing something. Computers are great, don’t get me wrong, but I love the paper in the hand to look at and cut things out of.
I give my mom a subscription to the paper each year and then she passes it along to my sister, and her husband would look at the paper and there’d be holes in it and he would always say, “must have been a grandkid,” Grandma had cut the picture of the grandkid out of the paper.
Be proud of your local newspaper and help us to keep the history of our county. Happy New Year.
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