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Hello Mountain Home,
It’s been a while since we’ve had a chance to sit down and catch up.
Things have been moving behind the scenes here at the Observer, and we’re going to be rolling out our subscription service at the beginning of next month. The cost of the Observer will be $8 a month.
A subscription will get you access to all our articles going forward. We’ll also be offering you five free articles a month for those who do not wish to subscribe. All submitted articles to the Observer will be released to the public free of charge so people can stay informed of what’s occurring in town.
We thank the businesses and organizations that send us articles every week. You help fill in the gaps for Alison and me, but more importantly, you help inform this community.
We’re also going to be rolling out our advertising service next month for those wishing to place ads on our website. Alison has been hard at work figuring out the advertising situation and is excited to finally get it off the ground.
She’ll be sending out advertising packets to businesses in town after the service is launched.
We hope that the people of this great community will subscribe to us and advertise with us to keep telling your great stories. This has been a lifelong dream for me, and it’s happening because of you!
With housekeeping out of the way, I’d like to talk about national politics, Ukraine, and community concerns.
Several of you have reached out to me this week with concerns about what’s happening in the world right now. Some of you were angry. Some of you were scared. I hear and understand you, and thank you for reaching out to me with your concerns.
I’m not a very political person, and I’ve tried to keep national politics out of the Observer. I want this to be a local paper, that’s focused on our great part of the world. You can get national headlines nearly anywhere and I do not want to regurgitate divisive drivel.
That said, I’m going to break my political rule today, because we are living through historic times and many of you are worried about what’s happening.
The world is not in good shape right now. COVID-19 shut us down for two years, and governments, including our own, took advantage of the situation, driving inflation and enacting policies that made little to no sense.
Both political parties have regularly lied to us about what’s occurring in the world and our country, often egged on by a complicit news media class that’s grown out of touch with the very people they’re supposed to serve.
Our country is heavily divided, and it’s starting to show. Every conversation is now an argument fueled by social media apps that we’ve become addicted to. Civility left the room a long time ago.
And now, the drums of war are beating in the halls of our federal government as the war in Ukraine spills over into our daily lives.
Gas prices are high, and they’re most likely to get higher. The same goes with food.
The times are tough, and if I could fix the world, I would, but I’m only one man in a small rural town with a small publication in the heart of the Ozarks.
I don’t have the answers, and I’m not confident that the people who claim to have the answers on both sides of the aisle know what they’re doing. If they did, we wouldn’t be in this situation. We should all do a better job of vetting our elected leaders and holding them accountable.
All I can offer you is the knowledge that this will pass. The bad times always do. And the best way to get through it is to focus on what we can control here in Mountain Home.
Our city is going through a boom right now, thanks to the strong local leaders within our community, even with the insanity of the last few years. And while times are good in town, what’s happening in the country could take the wind out of our sails if we don’t work to keep what we have going.
And Mountain Home is the most important thing we have going for us. So let’s keep our heads, roll up our sleeves and continue to show the world that we can thrive even in the darkest of times.
As the great Benjamin Franklin once said during our country’s founding, “energy and persistence conquer all things.”
Stay safe out there,
Chris
