Changes on the horizon at the PCN

In just eight weeks, this newspaper will celebrate the beginning of 97 years in publication in Phillips County and be just 154 editions from its 100th Anniversary.

As you can imagine, the Phillips County News has seen thousands of changes over the years while printing over 5,000 editions of the newspaper which are not excluded to the paper's having the pressman arrested for moonshining in this publication's first year, or burning to the ground in 2010, losing the last printing press, and forcing Curtis and Bonnie Starr to move the business to the current 220 Central Ave. location.

With that in mind, we will be moving the PCN headquarters to a new location, two doors north, on the opposite side of Sue Kaluza's Sheer Essence. It is nice to be moving the newspaper into a more modern building and the PCN and Kaluza, who also lost her business in that 2010 fire, will remain our neighbor, a tradition that stretches back to 1976 when she opened her first shop, Sue's Stylette. Unfortunately, with the move, we will no longer be selling office supplies or jugs of water anymore. We will miss each of our loyal customers, and we are only down two doors so come and see us, but I have a sneaky suspicion that life for the four of us (Deb, Pierre, myself, and Evie...listed by tenure since we all rock) is about to become much more productive on the newspaper side of the business.

Eric and Dara Wilke from Malta's Todd's Technology have purchased our remaining office supply inventory and will start selling items at their downtown location and water vendors are still available at Westside Self-Service and Albertsons.

Once the location switch is complete, which will be soon as long as it doesn't get 40-below outside, will be quick and efficient. The building will then be cleaned out (because we have more plumbing parts than any newspaper should have) and we will hopefully rent the building to a business that will thrive in a choice location for the next 100 years.

There will likely be some bumps along the way, especially for our walk-in Wednesday subscribers as parking will be limited, but the four of us at the PCN each are looking forward to continuing this press run and making the newspaper better every week.

Happy New Year!