The sole purpose of a community newspaper, to include this one, is to serve the community.

Our newspaper contains news, features, sports, and advertising geared to the Roanoke-Chowan region, which includes the outer fringes. It often includes news from the state and national levels, but only if information contained in those stories have an effect on the citizens living within our four-county coverage area and/or the businesses that operate here locally.

In other words, this newspaper belongs to the people of the greater Roanoke-Chowan area; it’s been in business for nearly 100 years keeping those who live or work here informed of what’s taking place locally.

We are the eyes and ears of the area. If you are unable to attend a commissioners or municipal board meeting, or are unaware of the latest news coming from our local schools, we are the messenger sharing that information. 

For decades, local citizens have submitted news briefs, sports info, Letters to the Editor, school news, business news and the like to this newspaper. We, in turn, publish that info because we have always operated under the mantra that if something is important enough to you to submit in order for others to be aware of community happenings and/or opinions, then it’s important for us to publish.

We also welcome ideas for general news, sports, or feature stories. While we make every attempt to know what’s going on within our little corner of the world, we can’t begin to claim to know each and every detail. That’s where our readers play an important role in THEIR newspaper by providing tips and story ideas.

All of this is stated to let our regular and/or first-time readers be aware that we are working with local officials in an effort to feature more business news in this newspaper.

On Feb. 6, I met with Bill Early, Hertford County’s Economic Development Director, and Amy Braswell, Executive Vice President of the Ahoskie Chamber of Commerce. We tossed around some ideas over ways to publically feature local employers and employees.

As mentioned earlier in this space, this newspaper has always welcomed business news. The type of info typically share includes new hires, promotions, awards received by the business, retirements, etc. Those tidbits of information are forwarded to us (now via email) and we still accept and publish that type of business news free of charge.

On occasion, an employer will contact us in an effort to let us know that a particular employee went above and beyond the call of normal duty or made a significant contribution to the local community, typically through their volunteer work.

An example is a story we covered and published prior to Christmas 2016. It involved the Rolling/Finishing department at Hertford County Nucor. There, money collected from a “Cuss Can” along with other donations from employees and supervisors is used annually to purchase Christmas gifts for local underprivileged children. I spent about 30 minutes interviewing those employees and their department head, snapped a few photos and came back to the office and penned a “good news” story.

Those types of story suggestions are welcomed by this newspaper. Mr. Early referred to them as stories where people are “caught doing something good” – I like that phrase.

So, with all that in mind, Roanoke-Chowan Publications solicits all businesses within our four-county coverage area to let us know when the business in general is honored, or hires a new department head/official, or promotes an employee. We also want to know about those “caught doing something good.”

Email your business news to cal.bryant@r-cnews.com.

Those wishing to suggest a story idea about a local business or one of their employees, either use the above email address or call me at 252-332-7207.

Cal Bryant is the Editor of Roanoke-Chowan Publications.