Few sounds make me happier than the satisfying “thump” of a well-stuffed newspaper hitting the porch. And last week’s edition of the Blue Mountain Eagle had a serious thump factor, thanks to an abundance of inserts. 

There was the weekly Huffman’s Market circular, the monthly Eastern Oregon Real Estate and Homebuilders Guide and a seasonal flyer from Len’s Pharmacy (we love our preprint advertisers!). 

But that was just the beginning.

Last week’s Eagle also came stuffed with GO! Eastern Oregon, our weekly arts and entertainment supplement; the spring edition of our three-times-a-year agribusiness special section; and the 2023 edition of Explore Grant County, our annual visitor guide packed with gorgeous photos of scenic Grant County locales (thank you, contributors!), helpful staff-written articles about things to do and places to see, and ads promoting a host of local businesses (thank you, advertisers!).

All told, that’s 152 pages of “bonus” content sandwiched into the April 19, 2023, Blue Mountain Eagle at no additional cost. No wonder it packed such a thump!

And what about that regular edition? I counted 28 staff-written articles, plus a smattering of stories from our sister EO Media papers around the region, packed into this week’s 14-page paper — which doesn’t include the additional content on our website, www.MyEagleNews.com, such as multiple photos and videos from our coverage of the devastating fire in downtown John Day. 

Where else can you get that kind of return on a $1.50 investment?

In case you missed it, the lead story in last week’s Blue Mountain Eagle was our report on the fire, which gutted three storefronts in the heart of the city’s downtown commercial district, along with a sidebar on the damage caused by the blaze. Look for additional follow-ups in the weeks to come as investigators track down the cause of the blaze and business and property owners try to recover from the damage. We also had stories on Chris Labhart’s return to the John Day City Council (and the council’s decision to join the R3 consortium), the reopening of the Blue Mountain Mini Market, and high school baseball, golf and dance.

This week’s paper will have a fascinating read on newly discovered information about the origins of Kam Wah Chung (already up on our website) plus stories on the Grant School Board and Blue Mountain Hospital District board elections, the county budget, Sen. Jeff Merkley’s Prairie City town hall and more.

If you’d like to support our trusted community journalism, please consider becoming a subscriber. And if you’re already a subscriber, please accept our thanks. We can’t do this work without you!

— Bennett Hall, Editor