From the Publisher’s Desk: Creating Something New.

By Kris Smith, Publisher

Creating.

This weekend, we will officially launch and introduce The Tri-County Chronicle to East Texas.

Officially. Official.

The Chronicle organization began six years ago with a seed planted by a local county leader and one simple question:

“Have you thought about starting a newspaper?”

Those words lit a spark.

At the time, I’m not sure anyone—including me—fully understood what that spark would become. But through sheer determination, a whole lot of will, some hard lessons, and more than a few long nights, that little idea became The NavCo Chronicle.

We have had bumps in the road.

We have made mistakes.

We have learned as we went.

We have celebrated victories, weathered disappointments, and figured things out when there wasn’t exactly a handbook telling us what came next.

And I don’t expect this time around to be any different.

But this leap is different.

When I started NavCo six years ago, it was a leap of faith—but it wasn’t quite like this one.

Navarro County knew who Kris Smith was.

Cherokee, Smith and Henderson counties do not.

They don’t know my story. They don’t know what we have built. They don’t know how fiercely I believe that small communities deserve newspapers that show up for them. They don’t know yet that when I say we are going to cover the people of a community, I mean “the people” — not just the big stories, but the little ones that become the stories families clip out and save.

They don’t know us.

Yet.

And maybe that is what makes this so exciting.

We get to introduce ourselves all over again.

We get to take everything we have learned over the last six years—the successes, the failures, the relationships, the trust and the lessons—and build something new with it.
Not replace what we have built.

Create something beside it.

There is something both terrifying and exhilarating about looking at a blank page.

Newspaper people spend our lives filling blank pages. Every week starts the same way: empty spaces waiting for stories, photographs, names and moments.

Then, somehow, we create something.

Maybe that’s why creating feels like the right word for this moment.

We aren’t simply expanding a newspaper.

We’re creating relationships.

We’re creating opportunities.

We’re creating another place where a kid can see his name in the paper after hitting his first home run. Where a grandmother can clip out a photo of her granddaughter receiving an award. Where a small business owner can tell people, “We’re here.” Where a community can celebrate together, mourn together and, sometimes, disagree together.

We’re creating a record of ordinary people doing things that matter.

That’s what I believe a community newspaper is supposed to be.

This weekend, when we officially introduce The Tri-County Chronicle to East Texas, I know there will be people who have never heard the name Kris Smith.

That’s okay.

Six years ago, there were people who had never heard of The NavCo Chronicle either.

So, we’ll do what we did then.

We’ll show up.

We’ll listen.

We’ll work.

We’ll make mistakes and fix them.

We’ll earn trust instead of expecting it.

And week by week, story by story and community by community, we’ll create.

Six years ago, someone planted a seed with a simple question.

This weekend, we plant another one.

I can’t wait to see what grows.

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