It was a dark and stormy night….alright, just kidding. Actually it was a beautiful Saturday morning in November, 2008. Rosie Glover, owner of ProAlliance Insurance, and website designer Melody Scott met at the Black Dog to discuss improvements to the ProAlliance website. The best way to explain how an insurance website meeting can lead to the birth of an online newspaper is to actually replay the conversation for you, so here is the conversation that took place:
ROSIE (who knows nothing about building websites): “Let me run something by you. People call me all the time to ask me what’s going on in town or to confirm (or deny) the latest rumor. I was reading a local newspaper in Spanish and it occurred to me that there is no English language news source for the region. I know crap about websites, but I can kinda write and I have info. Does the idea interest you?”
MELODY (who had recently arrived from Canada and did not yet know better than to hook up with Rosie): “Wow, cool. Yeah.”
Believe it or not, the RPNO went live within 2 weeks.
While Mel has since moved on and is no longer actively involved with the RPNO, she remains a valued member of the support team. We started with no advertisers (well, other than ProAlliance, but they don’t pay). The Thirsty Parrot was our first real money client, and we celebrated by spending it all there, I think. Then came Gretchen Ellinger, Latitude 31 and the Sandbar. We are ever-thankful for their support, and for yours, dear readers.
The team continues to grow. No one drops off, we just scoot over and make room for the newer ones. If you like what we’re doing, let us know. Better yet, visit our advertisers. It’s thanks to them that we exist.
