Thirty years in the books with the next 30 still to come

This week is the 30^th anniversary of the River Town Times. 

This newspaper started against an older, established newspaper known as The Amherstburg Echo in 1995 and throughout the last three decades, the RTT has had different owners (including founders Karen Morrell, Rusty Brown and Ryan Deslippe and its first editor Adrian Harte), publishers, editors, reporters, sales representatives, graphic designers, carriers, office managers, and other staff members and supporters. 

We, namely Laura and Dominic D’Alessandro and myself, have an ad thanking our readers and advertisers on Page 6 of this week’s issue, but I figured a milestone like this deserves another mention on top of that. 

Our readers and our advertisers are greatly appreciated and the importance of your loyalty and support can’t be understated.

We hope you enjoy the “retro” look of this week’s masthead. Our usual logo will return, but we turned back the clock and are using the first-ever masthead ever published by the River Town Times.

The first of issue of the River Town Times - August 8th, 1995.

My personal journey includes a stop at the River Town Times very early in my career, though the early part of my career is predominantly tied to the Echo. As an Echo freelance reporter and intern from St. Clair College in late 1994 into 1995, there was a break in my ties to the Echo in the middle part of that year. 

In the second issue of the River Town Times, published Aug. 15, 1995, I had a pair of stories in it before I went back to the Echo where I stayed in various forms until the paper was shuttered in October 2012. 

In that two-paper era, I was able to get to know some of the staff including my editorial and sales colleagues at the RTT and develop lasting friendships. 

There are many others that have been integral parts of this operation as well as the current staff but I would need about four pages to list them all. I don’t want to miss anyone as anyone who has passed through the doors of the River Town Times, regardless of where our office has been located in Amherstburg, as their contributions have been extremely valuable. I apologize if I should name someone and didn’t, but I’m just fearful of accidentally omitting someone. Just know you are all appreciated!

I still see Adrian Harte on occasion and have travelled to Ottawa twice over the years to keep in touch with Rich Thorpe. I still see Joel Charron, mainly on the sidelines of North Star Wolves football games.

I was fortunate enough to be able to join the RTT in late 2012 with Karen, Peggy and the staff at that time. 

Ownership has changed a couple of times since I’ve been here. That latter time saw me be fortunate enough to join the ownership group with Laura and Dominic. I consider myself fortunate to be able to count them as friends as well, some of the many I’ve made along this journey. I am just a small cog in this paper that motors along every week so I am fortunate to be surrounded by the team here at the RTT. I hope this column doesn’t make it sound like this place is all about me and my career, because it’s very far from it. 

It takes a team to get this paper to press and online every week, and I am just one team member.

In addition to Laura and Dominic, I’d like to thank our current group that are helping each and every week such as graphic designer Matthew Zaidan, our freelance reporters Fred Groves, Donna Tuckwell and Hailey Zimmerman, our proofreader Ian Phillips, our drivers Louise and Ashley, and the many others that play a part in this whole operation.

In between the initial ownership and us, the River Town Times was owned by Southpoint Publishing out of Leamington. The latter company, headed by Jim Heyens, still operates the Southpoint Sun newspaper.

I’d like to think I am doing much of the same job as I was when the Echo closed, trying to get to as much in the community as I can. We work out of the office, currently located in the Heritage Square plaza at 80 Richmond St., Monday through Friday and we put a lot of time and effort into delivering the community the best product we can. We hope we are doing our predecessors proud as we know a lot of work went into the River Town Times before we got here.

The newspaper industry is challenging these days but we’re working hard and continuing to print our paper every Wednesday and publish it online. The support from the community has been tremendous and we emphasize that we are thankful for that. There is still a place for local news and we don’t take our responsibility in delivering that lightly.

We look forward to serving this great community for many more years to come. Who’s up for another 30 years?

Thirty years in the books with the next 30 still to come