Big Changes Coming Soon

Readers who have visited the Times office in recent weeks may have noticed: it's a busy place these days! The newspaper's Dayton office next to the courthouse has also come back to life now that Reporter Morgan Smith is there during the latter days of the week.

The little newsroom on Main Street in Waitsburg is a veritable beehive and not just on Mondays and Tuesday when we get ready for production. During the other days of the week, except Fridays, a new team is getting ready for something special.

For the first time in its 135-year history, the Times will become a 16-page paper with dedicated sections for Waitsburg and Dayton, and possibly for other communities in the Touchet River Valley later on.

The first 16-page edition will appear on Aug. 2, though rate increases will go into effect slightly ahead of that time on July 1.

Ever since the Times changed hands in late 2009 and began covering other communities in the valley more vigorously, we have realized that even though our valley residents have a lot in common, each of the towns we cover is unique and deserves its own identity in the newspaper.

It's worth noting, as we have in the past, that the Times has not been called The Waitsburg Times since the 1950s, when the name was officially changed to the Times for its broader appeal. That's not to say the newspaper isn't thoroughly committed to covering the news in the community where we're based. To the contrary.

It was in part because of feedback from readers in Waitsburg and Dayton, and in part because of the great response we've had from local advertisers, that we decided to go to a higher page count. We were finding that stories and photos from each town were falling through the cracks, being cut or being delayed because we didn't have enough space.

From the beginning of the ownership change at the Times, it's been our goal to become the premier source of news and information for the Touchet River Valley. When we arrived, we made some immediate changes, adding color to four pages, expanding sports coverage, creating a website, setting up a Facebook page and bumping the page count to 12.

Now, with a new team of professionals, we're ready to take the newspaper to the next level. In addition to increasing the page count to 16 and devoting portions of each weekly edition to Waitsburg and Dayton, we'll pack in a lot more community information about government meetings, club gatherings, school updates and many other announcements or minutes we have not been able to get to or fit in.

You will also see expanded legal pages, as the Times recently obtained the contract to publish legal notices for the City of Dayton and has put in the lowest bid to do so for Columbia County. It offers the most affordable rates for legal notices to private attorneys and other government agencies serving Columbia and Walla Walla counties.

To produce these better results for readers, the Times now has a bigger staff, including Managing Editor Jillian Beaudry, Office Manager Tawnya Richards, Advertising/Legals Manager Larry Davidson, Dayton news Reporter Morgan Smith and Community News Coordinator Karla Price. Publisher Imbert Matthee will continue as a writer at large and be in charge overall.

Your bigger and better Times also requires more resources, but we will not be asking for a large price increase from readers and advertisers. On July 1, the price for a single-copy will go up only 25 cents to an even $1, display ad rates will rise just 3 percent to $6.95 per column inch and subscriptions for Walla Walla and Columbia counties will go to $39.95 from the current $35.

We will also add a flat fee to advertisers for having their display ads on our website, where they have enjoyed a presence free of charge since we launched waitsburgtimes.com in early 2010.

In part, this little lift is to keep up with the rising cost of news print, but more importantly to make the critical changes our readers have asked for.

If you have any questions about these changes and improvements or you want to subscribe to the bigger, better Times, please don't hesitate to call our office at 509-337-6631.

We know you will enjoy your new Times.