Local news

It was about a year before Mr. Harnack bought the Gazette that my health took a slight downturn and I forgot, among other things, to renew my subscription to the paper. I had always had one since this is my hometown. I want to know how everyone is doing here. So it wasn’t until Tom Barlass came to the cemetery in a rage re: Norma Becker’s comment about her perception of the “grass and weeds.”

Well, my concern at the moment wasn’t so much the article (which I hadn’t seen yet but the lessening of Tom’s face color from a beet red to a more normal one). I was afraid he was going to have a heart attack or stroke. Well, we talked for a while and after he calmed down I said I would write a letter to the Editor (my first in 73 years) and he said ok.

When I went into the new Gazette Office on the following Tuesday morning, I was surprised by two things: Only two staff members present and silence. I was use to the machines in back, so this place was really different. Then I remembered the “Technology Age” that I say we are unfortunately in, but which I imagine other vehicles of the paper has at its disposal but in reading the October 12th edition I only saw the names of Simpson, Harnack and Hull as professional reporters and subsequent letters to the Editor I found that they too are busy, but in a different way, and it obviously has worked.

The Whitman County Gazette on October 7th, 2023, was awarded the best newspaper its size in Washington in the last year. I’ll complete my comments next week because I know what my old buddy Jack McBride is thinking and I’ll try to beat him to the punch!

Dennis McDonald

Colfax