Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
Serving the Big Horn Basin for over 100 years
A year ago we welcomed our readers into a new era with the Northern Wyoming Daily News transitioning into the Northern Wyoming News and publishing its first edition as a weekly newspaper.
The change brought this community newspaper full circle. It began as a weekly newspaper, the Worland Grit, later grew into the Northern Wyoming Daily News publishing five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday, and this week we celebrate one full year as the Northern Wyoming News. This year is also the 115th year for the newspaper that has called Worland home and that has chronicled the lives of the residents of Washakie County and the Big Horn Basin.
It has been a strong year for the Northern Wyoming News, ending with a second place editorial excellence award in which the judges wrote “great leadership in tough times,” as well as our sports editor earning a photography and a writing award.
We have seen staff changes over the past year and today we welcome our newest staff member as George “Hasci” Horvath joins the Northern Wyoming News as our newest general news reporter. You can come meet him and our award-winning staff from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. today at our open house.
While the change to a weekly was a challenge for the staff — we had a few growing pains — we realize it was also challenging for our communities. Worland, Ten Sleep and many communities in the Big Horn Basin looked to the Northern Wyoming Daily News for their daily dose of national, state and local news, daily comics, business/stocks news and the TV guide.
For 70 years the communities were used to getting a paper every Tuesday through Saturday and now they receive their local news on Thursdays.
It took time for the community to get used to deadlines, to planning ahead on getting information in the newspaper but we hope that people have come to realize how much more local news we are able to offer.
One of the biggest changes for people was that we no longer published the weekly TV guide. We have included an evening weekend guide this past year but that will be ending after February.
Another change is we will not be bringing back the NASCAR page. This was not an easy decision (especially with the editor being a NASCAR fan), but it was a necessary one as we only have so much space in a weekly publication and we want to make sure that that space best serves the majority of our readers.
One change that we feel resulted in a better product was with the Worland High School graduation edition. Due to our press schedule out of Douglas, and the high school not having a final list of graduates until after our press time we opted to print a commemorative graduation edition the week after graduation, rather than a pre-graduation edition. The commemorative edition still had the names and photos of the graduating seniors but also included photos from the graduation ceremony as well as highlights from their senior year.
We realize this was a surprise to some readers and we should have done a better job letting our readers know about the change. This year we do plan on the same commemorative edition coming out the Thursday after graduation, again for the same logistical reasons, but also because we believe the commemorative edition is a nice keepsake for our graduates.
With a change to a weekly format our focus has turned to local news first and foremost. In a digital world it is so easy for people to get national news on TV or on their phones or tablets, but newspapers are the source for local news. We try to highlight major national news on our Facebook page and Twitter feeds and you can find Wyoming news, provided by the Wyoming News Exchange, on our website, wyodaily.com, for no charge.
Our plan is to be here another 115 years serving this community, but what the newspaper will look like 115 years is anyone’s guess. Our job will remain the same — covering local people and events and telling the stories that matter to you and working to help make this community a great place to live and work.
Come celebrate with us today, we’ll save you a cupcake.