Welcome to Year 4!

Ray Criscoe

Randolph Hub

If you can believe it, Randolph Hub is about to wrap up its third year of existence. Which means Year 4 will begin in September.

Wow.

What this project — as I still call it — has been able to accomplish is amazing, if you ask me. Each week we start with a blank canvas and fill it with nothing but local information, from news to sports to features to business news. From hot topics to fun stuff to classifieds and law reports and historical notes, obituaries, photos, local advertising, nonprofit news … where else are you going to find that all in one place?

Then consider I’m 65, Larry Penkava has about a decade on me, my two sports guys and college friend who keeps my Facebook and website updated are all younger than me, but not by much. We’re proof you don’t have to be spring chickens to put out quality work. 

More than a half-dozen other folks chip in to help, too, and nearly all of them have regular full-time jobs. It’s a sterling testament to how much they want to help the community by helping Randolph Hub succeed.

So as we enter Year 4, here’s a sort of State of the Randolph Hub capsule of where we stand on developments in various areas.

Annual increase … one more time

I’ll go ahead and get this out of the way first. So far each year, we’ve raised the full-year subscription price by $5 heading into our next term, and that will be the case one more time this year. Beginning on Sept. 1, the subscription price for weekly issues mailed to you 52 weeks a year will rise to $60.

And as has been the case previously, I’m announcing it now to give subscribers a chance to renew at $55 before Sept. 1 and avoid the increase.

My own rising costs, of course, are the reason. The cost to mail a paper and print it have risen over three years, as you might imagine; my mailing costs alone have gone up by 35 percent since the end of 2021.

Print is not cheap, as The Charlotte Observer just proved earlier this month. The once stalwart quarter million-plus circulation daily paper is cutting its product to three days a week while offering a daily option online. Just goes to show how rare it is these days for a community this size or even a whole county sometimes to have a print newspaper — and of this quality, to boot.

All that said, my plan is to NOT raise the rate next summer. $5 extra a year may not seem like much, but it will turn some people away. I think $60 is a good figure to build around, probably where I should have started at the beginning, and now we’re there. Let’s see if we can make it work at that figure.

New obituary feature

We’re constantly trying to figure out how to add to our product even with our limited staff and resources. Adding our Tidbits section on this page is one such example. This week, we’re instituting a change on our obituary page, one long sought by some customers. 

In addition to any paid obituaries submitted through the week, we will briefly list names of other people who have died in the county, along with their funeral home and funeral service details. This week’s obituary page includes two paid obituaries and 16 other short wrap-ups.

We still face weekly newspaper challenges, in both time and space. So our list will include obituaries from Saturday-Friday each week. This week’s are from Saturday, July 20-Friday, July 26. (Friday is my cutoff for material so I can have all of my pages laid out, proofed, corrected, turned into PDFs and sent to the printer by Sunday night for a Monday afternoon printing.)

We are combing Randolph County funeral home websites to make the list and present it in one place, with names in alphabetical order. We will miss out-of-county funeral homes, but if you have a loved one who should be on our list, send that info and we’ll add it in a future edition.

Another oldie but goldie

On a less serious note, we are planning to bring back something a little more fun for the Sports pages — our once popular football picks back in our C-T days. And the four main participants have even all agreed to return — myself, Dennis Garcia, Megan Crotty and Tony Bolick. Let the catty comments begin!

Printer update

Speaking of printing costs and their effects on the newspaper industry, we were informed about six weeks ago that the Winston-Salem Journal was closing its print plant. That’s where our paper was printed.

Lee Enterprises is still printing our paper, but now at its Lynchburg, Virginia, location.

On the plus side, you may have noted that the print paper is whiter and cleaner (less inky) than before. The photo reproduction is even better, and the WSJ folks did a great job in the first place. However, the newer press in Lynchburg is producing even better quality work.

On the negative side, our papers are back to being mailed on Tuesdays instead of Mondays. We are still printing on Monday, but we lost our 9 a.m. print time, which allowed us to mail papers before noon on Mondays. Now we print in late afternoon, pushing the mail time to Tuesday before noon. To date, that hasn’t been much of a problem overall, but I’m definitely keeping my fingers crossed.

I wish I could guarantee a date of arrival, but no one mailing papers can. However, in addition to the print edition, I can send you the digital PDF I now use in place of an e-edition. All you need is an email account. Signup is free as part of your subscription. I email it to customers each Wednesday around noon. That’s as close to a delivery guarantee as I can offer.

Ray Criscoe is owner, publisher and editor of Randolph Hub. Contact: 336-465-6572 or randolphhub@outlook.com.