Newspaper continues to grow with Valley

Kari Sleight, Publisher

What a difference a year can make. Last July, we broke ground on our new production facility, and a few short weeks ago, we put the finishing touches on our multimillion-dollar investment in the Mat-Su Valley as our landscaping was completed.

My thanks go out to Andy and Jeff at Architects Alaska, and Greg and the rest of the Collins Construction crew.

The journey from a twice-weekly, contracted print and mailed newspaper to a thriving, thrice-weekly, self-printed, home-delivered quality newspaper has been quite an experience.

We had our share of normal change-in-operations bumps along the way, but the dedicated employees at your hometown newspaper worked their way through them to make sure our readers received their newspaper, every edition.

Our primary reason for investing in the press and production equipment was to provide our readers with more timely news and have more internal control over the quality of the printing.

Printing the newspaper on site has allowed us to significantly extend our reporting deadlines, and our reporters are taking good advantage of that extra time.

Having the flexibility to include important news events in the next morning's edition is a huge improvement to our overall news package.

Judging by the increase in circulation we've experienced the past few months, it's evident the people of Mat-Su have noticed the improvement, too. June's circulation increased more than 27 percent over last June, and July is showing the same strong growth pattern.

We couldn't continue to grow without the support of our loyal readers and the community as a whole. For this, I thank you.

I appreciate all the words of encouragement I've received each time we started another major project - adding the Sunday edition, moving from postal to carrier delivery, and the major undertaking of bringing the printing of the Valley's newspaper home where it belongs.

Our front-page tag line reads "Growing with the Mat-Su Valley since 1947." It is a statement we take to heart.

This newspaper has a longstanding tradition in providing fair, balanced news coverage on topics important to the Mat-Su community. It is a tradition we will continue to build upon.

We are also committed to continue to grow with Mat-Su Valley in expanding services and content to meet the needs of our readers.

As always, I welcome your comments and suggestions on improving the newspaper.

While I realize we can't possibly get in every news item that every individual requests, we do our best to publish a variety of news items in each edition and strive to include reports that interest and benefit the greater population. Please e-mail your comments to kari.sleight@ frontiersman.com, or drop me a line via regular mail at 5751 E. Mayflower Ct., Wasilla, AK 99654.

Kari Sleight is the publisher of the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman.