New web site/blog

I have loaded all of the past posts and comments from this blog onto my new Washington County News web site/Backroads Newsroom blog.
The new site can be found at www.backroadsnewsroom.com.
I will no longer be posting on this site. I will leave it up for a while so people know where to go for the current blog. Please join me in this new effort by checking out the new site and leaving your comments.
--Dan

Airport area activity

To help pad the numbers for usage of the airport, I took this picture of an airplane within a mile of the airport.
Of course, it is just a styrofoam toy airplane, but with some of the usage figures that have been put out there, the government folks must be using sightings like this in their statistics.

Friday Night Lights (quarter by quarter style)

I won't be able to do the touchdown by touchdown coverage of last week, but I'll try to get scores posted by the quarter.

Theater demand - Reader forum

"WCHS108" asks:
Why would 9 people vote to NEVER go to a movie in the event a theatre was built in Washington?

Beasley trouble - Reader forum

"WCHS108" comments:
Beasley just as guilty, finally, the truth comes out. Why wasn't he kicked out of the rookie symposium the same time as Chalmers and Arthur...and Beasley fined $50K while the other 2 fined $25K, must have been his pot!

Future of schools - Reader forum

"WCHS108" asks:
Not a new subject...but since all schools are 1 month into the year, the future of all the schools in the county; any possible merger ideas, and if so, which school should consider and with whom?

Another record

The Backroads Newsroom blog set another readership record! There were 323 pages loads yesterday which surpassed the previous record (from two Thursdays ago) by three loads.
Yesterday also tied the record for unique readers at 120.
So things are going well and I believe that when I get the new blog/web site going, things will pick up even more.
The Washington County News is one of the few weeklies in Kansas with an active blog. I've been talking to a journalism professor at Wichita State University about the Backroads Newsroom blog and what it has added to my news dispersal efforts. I strongly believe we'll see a transformation in news distribution over the next decade. How long will a hardcopy printed newspaper continue? I don't know, but the digital edition will take over eventually.
I won't be the first to discontinue a printed product, but I won't be the last either. It will be interesting when it happens and if advertising can continue in some form, it will be nice to save the thousands of dollars I spend on printing each month!