Captain’s Log – Star Date 78235.3, The Great Fernley Caper

We’re expanding again. This time, I’m nervous. Maybe I get nervous every time, but like birthing a child, women have short memories. Otherwise, we all would only ever have one. 

Our two online papers are still coming along – Silver State Chronicle is doing well, we have work to do on The Pershing Post. This week, we will begin our process of getting all the pieces in place to print our buddy Robert’s online paper, The Fernley Reporter, with his first edition coming out Oct 25. 

It’s nearly six years since we began this crazy ride and almost to the day four years after we printed our own first edition on Friday, November 6, 2020. 

Robert came to see me in 2015 when I was running the Churchill Economic Development Authority and the Small Business Development Center. He had been working for the Reno Gazette Journal but decided to go it alone and wanted to start an online news for Fernley. He was the original early adopter. 

By the time we started The Post in 2019, these hyper-local, community newspapers had become a trend. People across the country were doing versions of these and he was well into making his work. 

But real life has a way of getting in the way, and while he was able to keep the paper alive, he never was able to really maximize what he had in mind. We’ve talked about it often over the years – how to make it flourish – and we’ve almost gotten to the point of printing him once before. 

And now, finally, this morning, I will traipse over to Fernley at the butt-crack of dawn to be at the very entertaining Fernley Chamber meeting, declare our intentions, and sell some ads.

DCLARIT – that’s even what my license plate says. And this right here is why. 

When you get ready to create, you must declare your intentions. “In the beginning was the word,” said some very wise men once. 

We are elbow-deep in pulling together all these pieces. The graphic designer has agreed to add another day to her schedule. We have a new ad gal on board. We’re combining forces and creating a better division of labor, and Robert is coming in to help us with the editing duties for all the papers. 

Plates are spinning, the balls are in the air, some of the pieces haven’t jelled yet, and we have some trainwrecks we’re ironing out, but here we go -- strap in. “It’s a great ride if you don’t weaken,” as Shirley Walker used to tell me. 

Hang on!

So while we expand our empire and seek to become “The Oasis in the Rural Nevada news desert,” we’ll still be right here…

…Keeping you Posted.

Rach