Mark’s Musings – January 8, 2019

Mark Fortune

For the past 11 years the team at The Coshocton County Beacon has had the distinct pleasure and honor of providing this community with a weekly community newspaper that focuses on the positive news happening here in Coshocton County along with publishing advertisements for area businesses and organizations. And while it has been a privilege to lead our team in this effort it was time to pass the torch to an organization that can take The Beacon to the next level.

As you may have heard The Coshocton County Beacon is now owned by the AloNovus Corp. based in Millersburg, Ohio. These folks publish the Bargain Hunter in Holmes and surrounding counties and this family owned company is just what Nancy and I were looking for when we started thinking about what a long term exit strategy might look like. With age being one of those things in life that you cannot outrun regardless of the effort, we decided that this was the best path forward for us, our team and the community. We wanted to see The Beacon continue for the long term, serving the people, businesses and organizations in this great community.

I need to tell all of you how very much Nancy and I sincerely appreciate your support over the past 11 years. From our humble beginnings publishing a twice monthly paper The Beacon is now a respected medium in our community publishing 40 plus page papers on many weeks and thousands of articles each year and several specialty publications annually.

Our news team covers dozens of local events, talks to hundreds of people and snaps photos by the thousands all in an effort to bring you a quality publication about Coshocton County. We are proud to do so and we are pleased to be able to continue our mission for many years to come.

To all of you that have taken the time over the years to jot us a note, pass along a compliment at an event, send an email or stopped in just to say hello – sometimes even bringing us some cookies! – We appreciate your gratitude and want you to know that every single one of those was appreciated. What’s more – and what you don’t know – is that I kept those. Your notes and cards are what kept us going during the early years, providing the same hope and encouragement that we strive to provide for this community on a weekly basis. Thank you.

You might say that we are beginning to write a new book about The Coshocton County Beacon and we get to start writing that book as part of the AloNovus Corp. This move is a positive one for our community and in particular for our customers. This opens up opportunities for area businesses to reach audiences beyond Coshocton County and take advantage of resources and tools that we could not provide. Being an independent publisher in today’s technology driven media world presents many challenges and the support of this community allowed us to defy those challenges for many years.

The strength of weekly community newspapers continues to climb thanks largely to how they cover local events and the consumers increasing demand for local information and content. We are excited to begin this new era in the history of The Coshocton County Beacon and we look forward to serving the readers and advertisers here in Coshocton County for many years. Nancy and I thank you for your support and confidence ever since the first issue rolled off the press on May 1, 2008. We are indebted to all of you. God Bless.

Category: Mark's Musings, Opinion