We realize few people like change, especially when it happens at a newspaper.
The leadership of the Chase County Leader News will transition from Jerry Schwilling to longtime staffer Cheri Hopson and the paper will be purchased by The Emporia Gazette.
Naturally, the change will produce questions about the future of the paper. It is everyone’s intention that the Chase County Leader News will continue publishing local news and remain a vital part of the community under Cheri’s direction as Editor and Publisher.
We are excited that when life called Jerry in a different direction, he called us to see if we could help provide stability to the newspaper. His intention and ours is that the community will always have a paper for as long as it supports one.
Running a weekly newspaper as an independent entity is extremely difficult. Long hours, deadline pressures, running the office, along with billing and balancing the books makes any solo operator worthy of a medal.
We hope the community will view this new partnership as a win-win situation. Cheri and other Chase County residents will cover the news by reporting, editing and taking photographs as well as running the office. The Gazette will assist in the back-end work like laying out the pages to Cheri’s wishes and fetching it from the printer.
As the name implies, The Chase County Leader News is your newspaper and we are here to help produce the product you want.
Since newspapers go on for hundreds of years, I like to think that no single person ever owns a paper. It’s really the community that owns the paper, and whoever is running it is just serving to fulfill the wishes of the community.
All we ask is that you help Cheri by giving her the news you want printed, subscribing, advertising and of course reading the paper. In this new partnership we are all here to serve you.