Our family is growing

We added another member to our growing family this week.

When I think back on that opening sentence, I’ve written it many times in my career as a journalist – and as a father. When each of our four children were born, I made special mention of it.

That was decades ago, though. Now, our “babies” are different. You’re holding one of them in your hand right now, so be careful! Don’t drop it.

We obviously aren’t having a new baby of our own. We are certainly not that crazy. We’ve parented our kids to the point where thankfully they don’t need us too much anymore, though we were graced with two last spring when college campuses closed. One got back out of the nest as quickly as she could, and another headed back for fall classes as she worked close to her real home this summer.

We’ve still got two pups at home, Mac and Rosie, and let’s not forget about Andy the gunea pig, who “chose” to stay behind when his offspring went back to Milwaukee. My daughter got one guinea pig and one apparently wasn’t enough for her (though it’s plenty enough for me). She got a second, and apparently the folks at Petco aren’t biological geniuses in telling apart guinea pigs. Two supposedly male guinea pigs wee not, and I don’t need to tell you the rest of that story.

Our other babies didn’t work that way.

Through a lot of hard work by a dedicated staff, led by an upper-middle-aged Paperboy, we are excited this week to introduce the Cottage Grove Journal to the family! It joins the rest of the gang: the Pierce County Journal, the Hastings Journal and the Stanley Republican, collectively known now as thepaperboy.news group of newspapers.

A lot has changed in the newspaper industry. In Pierce County, Hastings and Cottage Grove, a newspaper conglomerate walked away from the communities, and we’re excited to step in. In the last year, we’ve grown to become the fastest-growing newspaper in Wisconsin and Minnesota.

Our goal is simple: we want to put out great local newspapers. We cover cities, villages, towns and counties. We cover the police department. We cover the schools. We get to know the people.

Please join us in welcoming Cottage Grove to the family. There’s only one rule in this household: No more guinea pigs!