Here at the Devils Lake Journal, we would like to thank everyone who attended the Open House celebration of our first year of the (once again) locally owned and locally focused newspaper. The event began early Thursday morning, Nov. 2, when Cathy Ann Wolfe delivered tasty vegetable trays and dips to give a healthier, lower calorie alternative to or addition to the planned menu of carrot bars, brownies and coffee. She and Gene Serumgard wished to honor the memory of Anton “Tony” Serumgard who was a typesetter and worked in the press room at the Devils Lake Journal long ago.
Two of the Journal’s friends, Betty Johnson and her sister, Edie Johnson, stopped in on Wednesday to add their congratulations a day early. Remember I had advertised originally that it was to be on Nov. 1 until I learned about the scheduling conflict Kathy had with that day? So we changed it to Nov. 2, the very next day – no problem! Well?
On Thursday morning the first well wishers came at 10:57 a.m. and had to wait a couple of minutes until Frenchie delivered the catered bars and coffee right on time at 11 a.m. Then it was a pretty steady stream of folks until well past the 2 p.m. scheduled end of the Open House. I think the last visitor dropped in at about 3:37 or 3:40 p.m. as we were cleaning up and putting the lobby back to “normal.” We figure in all we must have had between 55 and 60 people in our little lobby throughout the day. Thanks so much for coming! Thanks for reading the Journal and subscribing to the newspaper. Thanks for purchasing ads and supporting us financially. Thanks for letting us know about the good things happening in our community so we can cover them and report on them. Keep up the good work and we will, too!
One person who attended the Open House, who was new to Devils Lake, said he wanted to see more listed in the Upcoming Events, since he was new to the area he was dismayed to learn about things going on in the community AFTER they had happened wishing he knew about those events BEFORE they happened. I told him I agreed with him – we have trouble with that even here at the Journal – how do we find out about fundraisers or banquets or meetings so we can publish them so everyone knows about them beforehand? Good question! Send us a brief e-mail (loleson@cmpapers.com) or note in the mail DLJ, 516 4th St. NE, Devils Lake, ND 58301 and we would be GLAD to publish your events and maybe cover them, too, but we have to know about them in advance to do that.
The good news is that gentleman that day signed up for a year’s subscription (NEW) to the Devils Lake Journal and hopefully with YOUR help we can keep him (and everyone else) informed of what’s happening in our community.
We didn’t take too many photos, just a few, or have everybody sign anything, except slips of paper for the drawings: The tote bag filled with Pasta Month items which went to Darci Gilbertson of Devils Lake, and the year’s subscription to the Devils Lake Journal went to Dwayne Herman of Devils Lake. Congratulations to both winners!
If you signed up for the Turkey Give-away drawing, that will take place on Nov. 14. We’ll be calling you if you are one of the winners in that special give-away.
On behalf of the owners and the staff of the Devils Lake Journal – thanks for everything!
