It is an extraordinary privilege to own a newspaper. My life has been immeasurably enriched by my connections to the people I have met due to my work for the East Oregonian Publishing Co. and all our publications.

So it is with great sadness — mixed with some measure of relief — that my cousins and I are turning over ownership of our newspapers to Carpenter Media Group at the end of this month.

The relief comes from knowing that CMG will be continuing all our publications and hiring the vast majority of our employees, and continuing our legacy of local journalism.

Being part of a newspaper family means I’m connected to the three generations of owners that came before me, starting with my great-grandparents, as well as my younger cousins. I’m connected to the hundreds of newspaper employees I’ve known in my life: publishers, editors, reporters, advertising sales reps, circulation managers, bookkeepers, graphic designers, pressmen, mailroom employees, delivery drivers, janitors and more, who all worked together to get essential information to our readers — and to write the first draft of history — in many communities across the Northwest.

Newspaper ownership also means having a connection to many interesting and influential people. I’ve met the last three governors of Oregon, our senators and congresspeople, and elected officials at all levels of government from across the state. And I’ve met so many ordinary people who work or volunteer to make our world a better place.

I’ve had the honor of working on a wide variety of stories and projects, far too numerous to list here. Each and every one taught me something about the history, people, land, environment, businesses, schools, churches, nonprofits and events that make a community.

Multigenerational newspaper families sometimes refer to the generations of owners as G1, G2 and so on.

As a G4, I want to acknowledge our G1: my great-grandparents, Edwin B. and Elsie Aldrich; our G2: my grandmother, Amy Bedford, and my great-aunt and -uncle, J.W. “Bud” and Eleanor Forrester; and our G3: my mother, Jacqueline Brown, and her cousins, Mike and Steve Forrester. Joining me in G4 are my cousins Susan Forrester Rana and her brother, Harrison Forrester. There is also a G5: my children, Caleb and Erin Picken, who were given a small number of EOPC shares by their grandmother when they were born. Both grew up in Pendleton, and have seen the recent challenges of newspaper ownership up close.

Over the past two decades, my cousins and I have had front row seats to the ever-growing challenges of newspaper ownership in America. We prided ourselves on adapting to the changing times. William F. Willingham’s book “Grit and Ink: An Oregon Family’s Adventures in Newspapering, 1908-2018” chronicles many of these responses to challenges we faced.

We’ve watched literally thousands of newspapers close across the country in the last 20 years, and we’ve been faced with rising costs and falling revenues. This year, we came to grips with the reality that we were not on a financially sustainable path.

So the time has come for us to step back and let Carpenter Media Group take over our operations. I will be continuing for a while as publisher of The Other Oregon — a quarterly magazine about rural Oregon. My connections to the East Oregonian and our other newspapers will fade over time, but my belief in the importance of independent, local journalism and the crucial role of newspapers to inform the public will never fade.