Where does the time go?

They say the older you get, the quicker the time goes by. How true it is. Amazingly this issue of Sun Peaks Independent News (SPIN Newsmagazine) will actually start our 10th year of publishing here in Sun Peaks. I thought that since this is the season of historic anniversaries at Tod Mountain, I should give you a little history of our local newspaper.

Since its inception in December 2002, Sun Peaks Independent News Inc. has published nearly 1.5 million copies of SPIN, the Sun Peaks summer and winter magazines and the Sun Peaks Visitors Guide. To put this in perspective, that’s close to 30 million pages of information about Sun Peaks and close to 15 billion printed words. I tried to calculate the number of letters typed but got lost in the zeros.

To date SPIN has inserted over 1 million copies of Sun Peaks literature directly into homes and businesses in various regions of B.C. and to stay in the positive I try not to think about how many cat litter boxes SPIN has lined, how many rainbow trout it’s wrapped up or how many woodstoves or campfires copies of SPIN have lit. Old copies only please folks.

When I look at the numbers, I say “holy cow,” but as with any small publication like SPIN, we’re only as good as the people behind it and it’s those people that truly have made the difference. To date SPIN Newsmagazine has had six editors behind the wheel and each one has not only brought a unique style of writing and English composition to the publication, they’ve also grown with the community through the eyes of SPIN. I also need to take my hat off to the dozens of writers who’ve graced the many pages of SPIN over the years with their tales, stories, articles, letters and sometimes heated opinions on any number of subjects. Without these seasoned writers, journalistic hopefuls and, in some cases, opinionated so and so’s, we could never have become an informative, engaging, news and information source to our readership and the people of this great community.

Many people may not think about it when they’re reading a copy of SPIN with their morning latte or their après beer but no one has ever paid to pick up a copy of SPIN Newsmagazine. SPIN is free and it’s the loyal and continued support of our many advertisers each issue that keep this publishing ship above water. Whether it’s a full page colour advertisement or a black and white business card, we hold all our advertisers in the highest regard as, without their trust in us to market their businesses, SPIN would simply cease to be. In closing, I think that SPIN Newsmagazine has become many things to many people in this community over the past decade and be it good, bad or indifferent in your Sun Peaks world, Sun Peaks Independent News, or SPIN, is here to stay.