In case you haven’t heard, the Chilkat Valley News is turning 60 next year and it’s coming up fast. Our official birthday is Jan. 3, 1966, when the first edition was published.


On the front page of that first paper, were stories about a new sawmill venture in the Port Chilkoot-area, the ferry schedule , a local group planning to build a “center for the performing arts,” a brief note about a Haines Paratrooper headed to Vietnam, and a request to help name the new paper. There were 19 options including my favorites: The Lynn Canal Drift, Chilkat Current, Tale Winds and the Haines Independent Grapevine. The Chilkat Valley News turned out to be good too.


What that first edition shows is that, for as long as it has existed, the Chilkat Valley News has relied on the community for more than financial support. We’ve asked for your help naming the paper, and after we combined with the Skagway News to form the Lynn Canal News we heard you loud and clear when it was time to split and focus on the Chilkat Valley. We’ve also asked readers throughout the years about what kind of news you’d like us to focus our limited reporting resources on.


I’m here now, as the newest owner of the Chilkat Valley News, to ask for your help again.
I’m seeking to form a community advisory board to help guide some of the critical decisions facing this paper in the near future. Those include our increasingly complex and expensive supply chain, our print frequency, what kind of market there is for what we offer this town, our tech stack and more.


While many boards of this type focus on editorial or content guidance, I’m looking more for a board that can broadly help with business strategy, and growth in a challenging environment for local newspapers. Think: finance, operations, technology, logistics, small business, nonprofit management or community leadership.


If you believe in local news and want to help shape its future here, apply! I’m sure your perspective would be valuable and I would be grateful for your insight. I’m looking for a commitment to meetings once a quarter for the next two years.


Thank you for all of your support over the years, and here’s to the next 60!

Name
Do you have previous journalism experience?
Can you commit to quarterly meetings?

Rashah McChesney is a multimedia journalist and editor who has reported and edited newsrooms from the Deep South to the Midwest to Alaska. For the past decade, she has worked in collaborative news as the...