The newspaper weathered drought, controversy, cutthroat competition, recession and perhaps hardest of all, it weathered its own internal growing pains. It grew into an organization that offers interesting jobs, educational and entertaining information and broad advertising exposure for businesses. It grew into an organization dedicated to serving a community of special, crazy, talented, exasperating, argumentative, educated, hard-working, generous and humorous citizens and visitors. The rewards of publishing a newspaper are the silver lining in all the hard work and deadline pressure that have piled up over 25 years. The community can have a sense of ownership in the local newspaper that's impossible in a big city.
Readers are friends, neighbors and visitors.
Jeff Cordes began his newspaper career in 1972 and has been the Idaho Mountain Express sports editor since 1977. Evelyn Phillips, co-founder of the Mountain Express, and Mountain Express columnist Pat Murphy also contributed to this story. Express Publishing Inc. All Rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of Express Publishing Inc. is prohibited.