Giving Thanks- We are incredibly grateful to be able to produce this newspaper for Hernando County and for all of the wonderful people we meet in the community. We are also appreciative of the support the community has shown over the last two years.
Here are a some of our recent developments.
The Hernando Sun has been growing substantially this year. We have a great team. We have about a dozen contributors who provide us articles and help us produce the paper every week. We have a number of people who help us get the newspapers to stores and sell advertising to local businesses.
It has been a busy seven months since April 1st, when we switched to printing weekly. We have doubled our subscribers since going weekly. In May, we met the requirements and started to carry public notices (Fictitious Name, Notice to Creditors, Foreclosure Sales, etc).
In September, our editor Julie Maglio attended the Florida Press Association’s annual meeting.
At the meeting she learned that the USPS has the ability to do exceptional dispatch (Where you drop off the newspapers at the individual post offices) that would decrease the time required for delivery to get the paper to subscribers. We are currently delivering as a periodical (2nd Class Mail) through the USPS and sometimes it is taking a week or so for our subscribers to get their paper. Delivery has been a source of much frustration for our subscribers and us. We are currently mailing through Lecanto, because Hernando does not have a Bulk Mail Entry Unit.
We may at some point switch to delivering the paper directly, but for now we are trying to figure out the best option to deliver via USPS.
We refurbished two more newspaper vending boxes. They are bright orange with Hernando Sun stenciled on the side and front. One is located on Winter Street across from the Hernando County Utilities building and the other on US 19 near the ABC Liquor.
We have been working on getting into more stores. We recently added Winn Dixie and CVS to the places we are carried. We are now about 70 stores throughout the county. We are in 3 of 4 Walmarts (Cortez Supercenter Manager said no on multiple occasions), all the Publix stores, Walgreens, CVS, and Dollar Generals and several gas stations (Sunoco, Speedway, Racetrac, 711, Circle K, etc).
We recently participated in the Veterans Appreciation Parade in Brooksville and Hernando Untapped. We very much enjoyed both events, especially the opportunity to show our support to our Veterans. We are looking forward to Light Up Ridge Manor in December.