I can’t say for sure that we’ve been either lucky or good, but maybe a little bit of both doesn’t hurt. As this online newspaper has grown it has been exciting to watch the increased participation on the website and to hear the favorable feedback at community events. With this being a relatively new format, especially for a local newspaper, it can be hard sometimes to quantify the impact our stories have unless we hear from our readers.

Over the past year we’ve heard from you more and more often – 329 comments to be exact. In the past year we have managed to publish 317 articles, all of which are archived and searchable. Give it a try searching or follow the link to our category archives for a peek into the past. I was recently reading a summary of our activity nearly one year ago and it’s astonishing to think I was ecstatic about having 227 readers in one month. Wow, that was an amazing month. Now a little over a year later and many stories past we’ve received 4,140 readers for the month of October and it continues to grow. What a difference a year makes!

From time to time I like to share this information with you not to boast, but to say thank you for reading and sharing your thoughts and ideas with us. From the start my vision was for this to truly become a community hub with your voices being heard loud and clear. I think we’re well on the way, but there’s more to come. We hope you’ll stay with us and continue to contribute by sending story ideas or leaving a comment to let us know you’re reading. You can help us today by sending this article to a friend, colleague or family member and let them know – there’s something good happening in Rancho and they ought to be a part of it.

Now get out there and vote to fulfill your other civic duty. Thanks again for reading.