A Great Ride…

In those days, Loudoun looked more like a patchwork quilt of small shopping centers and family farms with all the potential of a community on the cusp of greatness. Everything about it was exciting, and as a young woman in sales, I loved the conversation with shop owners who also recognized Loudoun’s potential.

The Loudoun Easterner was known as the little newspaper with the blue stripe, but it was so much more. We were a voice for the east and for people who needed a forum for opinions and concerns but had no other way to be heard. People wrote in and we published their letters, regardless of what we thought. Editor John Geddie (the elder) lived by the First Amendment. He was a believer, and he proved it every day.

We all had our roles, much like we do at the Independent. There was my mom, the multi-talented publisher Beth Miller, who reveled in politics and rarely cared about profit. Julia Stewart split her time between sales and reporting, a bizarre mix of jobs that would never fly today. There was Heidi, Danielle, and Barb in graphics. Without fancy computers and handy software, they made it work.

When my mom died, and the Easterner was sold to Landmark Communications, John and I, along with Julia, Dave, Nick and later Allyson, launched the Loudoun Independent, a new paper that was to be the new voice of the east. Going up against a 35-year-old paper, we ourselves had built, was scary and exciting and just plain crazy.

Determination can go a long way.

Not to say we haven’t had our challenges or troubles. We have. We had some really dark days.

 But my staff never left me--the Maryanns, the Jonies, the Johns, the Allysons and the Nicks. They stayed. They helped. Although the strain and the stress were often palpable, they stuck it out. The success of the Independent is theirs. They built it with their own blood, sweat and tears, quite literally.

We grew. Slowly but surely, we grew.

Two years ago we were purchased by MC Dean, an international company that does just about everything. Bill Dean, the CEO of the privately owned company, became my boss.

I will be forever grateful to Bill Dean. He came out of nowhere and saved our successful but suffering little company. We evolved from a little newspaper to a recognized news source in the east. We ran in-depth series full of exclusives that made a real difference in the lives of our readers.  We concentrated on our online presence. We introduced video. We took chances and risks. We diversified.

And Bill Dean was there in support of it all.

So now it’s time for more change. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

But this change won’t include me. I’ve decided it’s time to try something completely new. In reflecting back on my 17-year career in the newspaper business, I’m satisfied with what we’ve accomplished and I’m ready to move on.

I have no idea what this change will bring. I hope for only good things for the new organization, the community it will serve, and the advertisers it will need. Short term pain and long term gain often result in success, and I hope this is the case here.

So I wanted to say Thank You to our readers, our investors, our advertisers, to the people who have been there for us, and to those who sacrificed.

Most of all, I can’t be more grateful to a loyal and brilliant staff. Their faces will remain forever ingrained in my mind.

Thank you.