Captain's Log - Mea culpa.

There are so many things to write about, but since this column originated to document the life of the paper, today I have to apologize and confess to a big mistake we made last week. We have begged forgiveness from the school district and worked with them to get the right information and have got it all fixed now, and hope the redo will restore your confidence. See the School Board story on page six.

We take this situation very seriously, and three of us spent a sleepless Friday night agonizing and troubleshooting to figure out how we managed this—and more importantly, how to ensure it never happens again.

For the past year, we've been struggling with the cloud service we use for all our files and from which we all work each week to produce the paper. I will refrain from naming the program (which we call an unholy menace). Uttering those two words results in an immediate twitch in my left eye and has been known to induce a full-blown anxiety attack. Suffice it to say we struggle. Files don't sync properly and, and, and… I'll spare you the distressing details and the agony it's been trying to keep everyone on the same page.

We all finally grew tired of this very popular and commonly used platform that never worked properly, so much so that our Leanna, the highly talented investigative reporter and editor (to whom all technology problems are defaulted), pulled the plug and found us another platform that has worked like a dream. However, we are still learning how to navigate the dream.

You know what they say about technology, however: "Garbage in, garbage out." Riggin is one of our most dedicated and capable interns—driven, eager to learn, and always willing to tackle big assignments. He took on the responsibility of covering the school board meeting and worked hard to write two stories he felt were important: one about the board's recent conference, which was scheduled to run last week, and another that focused on the meeting and financial matters, which was supposed to run this week. 

Unfortunately, the rough, unedited version that addressed the fiscal decisions made at the meeting was mistakenly saved under the filename for the convention story. That error resulted in the entirely wrong article being published online and in print. 

And from there it all went badly.

We all sincerely apologize for letting that story slip through.

So, while we hang our heads over here and work on perfecting our processes, please know that we always aim to get it right in the first place. When we don't, we will always make it right, and we are grateful you let us remain right here…

…Keeping you Posted.

Rach.