Celebrating the 1,000th issue of the Village News

The Feb. 9, 2017, edition of the Fallbrook/Bonsall Village News is the publication's 1,000th issue.

“We’re so thankful and excited to celebrate 1,000 issues, which have included tens of thousands of local photos, names, stories, advertisements, etc.," said Village News publisher Julie Reeder, who founded the paper in December 1997. "It’s so great to work in Fallbrook and Bonsall, where the residents support subscriptions as well as the advertisers. It’s been our goal to publish fair and accurate news and to be that dependable communication hub for everyone. It’s just been a great privilege."

The Village News succeeded the Fallbrook Enterprise, which was Fallbrook's first weekly newspaper that began publishing in 1910. By 1997, the Enterprise and the North County Times were both owned by the Chicago-based Tribune Company, which now owns the San Diego Union-Tribune. In September 1997, the Enterprise was assimilated into a zone of the North County Times.

Fallbrook’s merchants were not pleased that their advertisements had a shelf life of one day rather than one week and Fallbrook's residents were not happy with the amount of local coverage in addition to sorting through news from throughout North County and southern Riverside County to read about what was happening in Fallbrook.

At the time Reeder, who had moved to Fallbrook in 1988 with her husband and children, was publishing a monthly current events paper called the San Diego Current and publishing books through Reeder Media, and Joe Naiman was writing for the Current.

The community supported Reeder, who created a Fallbrook section for the November 1997 and December 1997 issues of the Current and Reeder recruited her friend Michele Howard to sell advertising. The success of those two issues, along with the relationship Reeder and Howard had built with the Fallbrook merchants and community leaders, led Reeder to create the Fallbrook/Bonsall Village News.

The first edition of the Village News was published on Dec. 18, 1997 and at least one business leader in town said, “They won’t last 100 days.”

The Village News had more than 40 people working on it during its first year. While many of the staff have worked for Village News for more than 10 years, Reeder, Howard, and Naiman are the three remaining original members of the Village News staff from 19 years ago.

Debbie Ramsey joined the Village News in 1998 as a features writer and quickly became the Village News editor. Reeder returned as editor after Ramsey retired in April 2016 with assistant editor Lucette Moramarco assuming acting editor duties when Reeder is engaged in business development activities.

There are quite a few staff members who have passed away and were beloved members of the community. “We will never forget Kay Howley, our office manager who greeted everyone as they came in or called, or Dick O’Brien and Fred Chase, who in their retirement attended thousands of events to photograph special occasions, kids, and business activities around town," said Reeder. "We also had a really nice lady, Sue Decker, who helped us get started the first year, and then the sales department also had a great loss with Jeannie Williams."

The converted garage at the Reeder's home was used as the Village News office for the paper's first few issues in 1997. The Village News then moved to an 8ft. x 10 ft. interim office in the back of a computer business on Fig Street until settling in their primary Village News office at 1114 S. Main Avenue in January 1998. Reeder says, “I remember just having one computer and a printer, with the cords stretching across the 8 ft. room. We had to be careful not to trip.”

In 2001, the Village News moved to an office at 224 N. Main Avenue, across from the theater, and in 2007 the Village News relocated to 127 W. Elder Street (Elder House). The Village News has been at 1588 S. Mission Road since September 2013.

The Village News can now also be read on the www.thevillagenews.com, which has 40,000 to 50,000 readers per month. Its sister newspaper, Valley News, started in 2001 and covers Temecula, Murrieta, Menifee, Wildomar, Lake Elsinore, Hemet and San Jacinto and has over 60,000 print readers per week and 175,000 to 200,000 online readers per month.

“Again, even though we have a lot of online readers, I really want to reiterate that it’s our print subscribers who are carrying a lot of the weight for the community as far as paying for writers and photographers and keeping those unique independent, award-winning stories coming,” said Reeder. "Advertising pays for a portion of it, but the subscriptions are more important than you think."

“As far as the future – it’s here now," continued Reeder. "Village News is still under the same leadership and ownership, but there is reorganization going on behind the scenes. Reeder Media is the name of the digital agency division of the newspapers and it’s growing very quickly right now. For the last 18 months, we’ve been offering social media marketing, social media management, website design and building, branding, graphics across the board, geotargeting for online ads, lead generation online, video services, text message marketing, etc. There’s no end to what we can do now or where we can reach, and it works beautifully with local print if you’re a local business. There is so much that we are doing now, especially with our digital agency division, that Village News just didn’t work as far as the name of that part of the business.

“Then there’s the magazine department. We’re now printing at least three magazines, and we are being asked to produce more, so we’ll see where that leads us too. For now, we’re just happy that print is still very much alive, and we’re embracing and helping our customers utilize new tools in a new age to maintain and grow their businesses. In the meantime, we will continue to produce award-winning, local, independent news coverage," concluded Reeder.

For more information, go to ReederMedia.com/corp, VillageNews.com, or MyValleyNews.com. To subscribe, call the office at (760) 723-7319 or go online to reedermedia.com/corp/subscribe/.

Village News photo in Deb's scans – The Village News office is located at 1588 S. Mission Rd., Suite 200.