Illinois Valley News

It“s time.

Yep, time to put away my pencils, pens and word processor keyboard. Time to turn off the emergency frequency scanner, and use my camera for photos of family and vacations, instead of accidents, fires and folks who figure in news and sports stories, and features.

Time to hang up my press pass.

Jan and I, after close to 25 years of publishing Illinois Valley News — the longest time anyone has published the valley“s newspaper — are going to fully retire. We“ve labored nearly a quarter-century in the Illinois Valley of S.W. Oregon, producing (with lots of help) darn close to 1,300 weekly issues. You know, the community “hometown“ newspaper that is invited into homes and businesses. We appreciate that.

We also appreciate and will miss our dedicated staff, our colleagues, our front-line troops: Michelle, Zina, Brenda and Scott. And let us not forget the hard-working “circulation gals“ — “Boss“ Millie, Janice, Nancy, Nina and Wendy. Also, we want to gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Dale & Elaine Sandberg, among others.

The new owner and publisher is Dan Mancuso, who has newspaper publishing experience, most recently with a large weekly in Washington state, and also has worked in journalism in Wyoming. With the IVN staff, he no doubt will continue the community newspaper tradition. He has been involved in various service efforts in his previous employment with an eye to community involvement.

We are pleased to have someone of his caliber take the ownership reins, and know that he will work hard for the valley and environs. He is deserving of cooperation and support from our longtime friends and customers. So please keep that in mind: It“s still Illinois Valley News — it simply has a new publisher who will put his brand on the newspaper, and, we are sure, make it even better.

Is it difficult to “let go““ Yes and no. We have not been directly involved in daily operations for more than a year. We“ve been editing and building ads, then sending them online from our home in Lovell, Wyoming. We still own a house and commercial property in Cave Junction, so we still feel our ties to I.V. But it“s time for us to move on, as we head toward our seventh decade of life.

It has been our pleasure to be your neighbor.

Now — how to say, “So long““ Let“s go (relatively speaking) with Adios, Sayonara, Auf Wiedersehen, Arrivederci, Au Revoir, Namaste, zai jian, and Do svidaniya.

And most of all, good-bye, best wishes and God bless.

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