by Bea Peterson
The Eastwick Press begins its 20th year of publication with this first issue of 2012. Over that time it has grown from an 8½ by 11 inch monthly news sheet to the 16 page weekly tabloid size newspaper it is today. Circulation has grown from less than 100 to near 2,000. Begun 20 years ago as the Petersburgh Poop (a military term meaning inside information) the name was soon changed to The Petersburgh Press. When the coverage area expanded to Grafton it became The Press and remained that as the coverage area grew. Ten years ago the name was changed again as The Press didn’t really describe who we were. So, using the old Dutch suffix, “wick” meaning area, the paper became The Eastwick Press. The name was chosen because we cover the eastern portion of Rensselaer County, once known as Rensselaerswyck, and it appears to have caught on – we get few references to the witches.
Ten years ago the first issue of 2002 contained an in depth history of the paper and those that brought it through the first ten years. For the current four owners the Eastwick is an exciting, challenging, often grueling, and rewarding enterprise.
Publisher Alex Brooks has been part of the newspaper the longest – 18 years. He took over from the original owner, Alan Hoglund, in 1994. Besides being publisher, he is advertising director. He supervises the solicitation of all advertising and designs the ads as well. He reports on Petersburgh, the HFCS Board meetings and, recently, the Grafton Town Board.
Kieron Kramer, who has been the managing editor since August of 2001, came on board in 1996 as a reporter covering Grafton, Berlin and Hoosick. Shortly after that he became the bookkeeper and subscription manager – his nemesis being the USPS second class mail quagmire. He supervises the newsstand circulation. He also updates the webpage weekly, reports on the Rensselaer County meetings and still covers the Berlin Town Board meetings. He recently began covering the Grafton Planning Board meetings as well. As Editor, he is responsible for the content of the paper, consistent with decisions made at the weekly owners’ meetings.
This reporter joined the Press in 1997 and covered the Berlin area and, in late 2000, began covering Hoosick and Hoosick Falls and assisting with advertising. Reporter David Flint began covering Stephentown in 1998 and often covers the Berlin School Board. On Wednesday nights all three pitch in to assist Kramer with the digital layout of the newspaper. Brooks and Peterson alternate weekly, laying out the last five pages, and Flint proofreads.
During the last 10 years Peterson and Flint have each received a New York Press Association Award for one of their photographs.
Support Staff
With such a small staff it is impossible to “do it all.” In these last ten years the Eastwick has been fortunate to have great support in Thaddeus Flint who helped us expand our coverage into New Lebanon and covers the Berlin School Board. Gary Danforth covered HFCS boys baseball, basketball and football for several years. Ryan Mosher has provided outstanding sports coverage throughout the readership area in recent years, while Sherri and Paul Hand have covered HF football. Steve Bradley is often first on the scene with great photos and has covered HF field hockey in recent years. This year Gail Delurey provided outstanding photos of HFCS girls and boys soccer. For a time Phil Zema reported on Stephentown and New Lebanon; Judy Radford and Erin Hogan covered Grafton, and Jan Shields covered Hoosick and Hoosick Falls. All of this support has been greatly appreciated and has added to the depth of the Eastwick coverage. Most important to the newspaper has been the excellent weekly newsstand delivery provided by Art Hansen, probably the oldest newsboy in the country.
Community Coverage
When something “bad” happens in any of the Eastwick’s six towns, New Lebanon, Stephentown, Berlin, Petersburgh, Grafton or Hoosick, you can bet the Capital District daily newspapers and television stations are there in a flash. The Eastwick covers those events, too, but when it comes to a boy making Eagle Scout or a girl receiving the Girl Scout Gold Award, it always appears in the Eastwick. Weddings, births, anniversaries, special birthdays, local honors and special events are covered. Because most of the meetings in each town are covered as well, space is frequently at a premium. That often means some community items have to wait for a “space available” slot. Those stories, however, are no less important. Because of the space issue several individual guest and staff columns have disappeared.
Our readership, however, is very much into local history. Hence George Holcomb is on his second round appearing as a regular. This past year several Civil War pieces with local ties commemorating the War’s 150th anniversary have been included as well as have stories about the Corkscrew Railroad and historic Berlin dwellings
State Of The Art
Since Alex Brooks took over the newspaper in 1994 he has worked to keep up and ahead of the times. From the beginning the paper was put together on computers using In Design, a new concept all those years ago. Many other weeklies were still creating columns of type and pasting those columns onto specially lined paper that was then taken to a printer for processing. At first The Press’s pages were printed out tabloid size and camera ready. The pages, however, still had to be driven to the printer. But for three and a half years now the pages have been sent to the printer over the internet at 7 am or so by weary staff.
Digital cameras eased the photo process from scanning photographs to having pictures arrive via email or by downloading a camera card. Faxed documents have also given way to email.
The Eastwick can be read on-line at www.eastwickpress.com. This is a great service for our out of area subscribers. On the web site all the photographs are in color, and often there is more than one photo of an event. The on-line paper does not contain all the content of the printed version, however.
Fortunate
The Eastwick has been fortunate that advertisers and subscribers have remained strong and loyal in these difficult economic times. We are grateful to all of them and to the newspaper’s many Patrons and Supporters. They are the reason we do what we do.
There is no doubt more reporters would be beneficial to the paper. Not columnists, but folks interested in covering meetings, or a specific meeting, or covering school and sporting events. Take it from me, it’s a great experience.