Stop the presses, Frontiersman is expanding!

Frontiersman editorial board

In August, the Frontiersman will be two years into its Sunday edition era. The addition of a Sunday publication was a big change for a community newspaper that had been publishing twice each week for decades. With the ink barely dry on the Sunday Frontiersman, a new era is now in the works.

In July, the Frontiersman will break ground on a new printing facility, on the property next to the current site of the newspaper on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway. By midwinter, the local, community newspaper for the Mat-Su will be rolling off a local, community press. It's a big investment for the newspaper -- an investment that demonstrates how great local support has enabled this newspaper to grow along with the community it serves, and that also shows the newspaper's commitment to continue to provide great coverage of local events and issues in a high-quality publication.

What this means for our readers is that there will be more color pages in the Frontiersman, and in the other publications we print each year. It also means that, in the near future, we'll be able to provide high-quality commercial printing services to customers throughout the Valley.

One of the greatest advantages will be that our deadline schedule will change, allowing us to print even more timely news in each edition, something that will improve every section of the newspaper -- and that will particularly enhance our sports pages and our ability to cover breaking news. Under our current deadline schedule, if it happens on Monday, there's almost no way it will appear in the Tuesday newspaper -- and that means it will be Friday before it hits the street. Once the press is up and running, Monday's important news will be in our readers' hands early Tuesday morning. We're proud of the coverage we provide now, and we're excited at the prospect improving that coverage in the very near future.

The official groundbreaking for the new site is July 13, beginning at 11 a.m. We hope to see all of our friends and neighbors at that special event. We'd also like to remind the community that any trees that are removed for the construction of the new facility will be made available for firewood, for a limited time. Please check back in the pages of upcoming editions for more details about dates and times for wood pick-up.