We recently celebrated our fourth birthday and have reached a pivotal turning point for The Eudora Times.
We are recognized nationally as a leader in community journalism – soon to be internationally, more on that in a minute – and with that has come a significant growth in funding in the last three months.
Consequential donations from Eudora residents and Journalism School alumni, along with support from Dean Ann Brill, mean we’re entering a new ballgame of what we can do. Your continued support in donations will help ensure this as well.
I break down below the “news about the news” and new services coming to The Times.
Kid Scoop
We entered a pilot trial with Kid Scoop, a national brand that produces a newspaper for children. Principal Seth Heide generously arranged a third-grade assembly for us Friday when senior reporter Sara Maloney, community engagement director Katie Maloney and I handed out papers to the kids for free.
Kid Scoop doesn’t actually have real news in it. It’s a 24-page activity book. The April edition has crossword puzzles, information about worms and manatees, puzzles about baby animals and an activity calendar, for example.
The goal is to get kids off electronics, help with their reading, enhance their media literacy skills and learn the simple pleasure of engaging with a newspaper.
Over 29,000 children in North Dakota, my home state, get Kid Scoop each month, so I partnered with a publisher friend up there to send us some papers to try.
I was astounded by the reaction at Eudora Elementary. Not only did many of the kids accurately describe what a reporter does when I asked them, but they were crazy for Kid Scoop.
One girl said she would have activities to do with her family. One boy said he would take his newspaper out of town with him while visiting relatives over Easter weekend. Another girl made my ink-running veins proud when she exclaimed how fresh the newspaper smelled.
People in my industry like to go all Chicken Little about how print is dead. Not if Eudora Elementary has anything to say about it.
The true test comes over the weekend. I told the third graders that they have very important reporting business to do this weekend to read their Kid Scoop and report back to their teachers Monday what they think about it. That will help guide if we launch it next school year.
We also need funding support. We paid for these first 200 newspapers ourselves from our fund. However, the license fee for Kid Scoop for 10 months is $2,000, so we are looking for sponsors for that, as well as some help with printing costs.
We hope that will come together in the next month. Email me at [email protected] if you are interested in being a media literacy sponsor for Kid Scoop.
In the meantime, the library, Zeb’s, and Main Street Scoops and Sweets have free copies of Kid Scoop to hand out as well if you want to check it out.
Front Page Designs
Coincidentally, we received two emails last month that have prompted us to start a new service.
We have not reached a stage yet where we can have frequent print newspapers. That is a complex undertaking. However, the addition of Camryn Robbinson to our team this year has opened up what we can do.
Camryn brings design skills that we have not had before. Therefore, we are now offering front page designs.
For example, we recently did a story about Dairy Queen owner Steve Walter’s retirement. Working with his family, we created this front page design out of our prior online story.
Similarly, coach Kyle Deterding reached out about gifts he wanted to give his senior players. So, we created front page designs for him like this one.
Therefore, if there is a story or a series of our photos that you would like to see in a front page design, Camryn can create a front page for you. The cost will be $65 for the design.
We will send you a PDF file. You can then have it printed at a print shop (such as FedEx) on 11×17 paper for a few dollars and then look into framing services on your own if you wish.
You can email us at [email protected] if interested.
Prom and graduation newspapers
Similarly, now that we have Camryn on board, we were able to do both prom and graduation tabs this spring.
You perhaps saw our promo that the prom tab is done. That’s a nice little treat with a surprise in the middle.
However, we had the graduation tab printed at my former employer in North Dakota and the shipment got stuck for three days in North Dakota’s latest blizzard, so that’s delayed distribution. I expect to receive the newspapers Monday.
My hometown newspaper has done a graduation tab featuring the senior class for decades now. It’s a huge undertaking, which is why we have limited it to a Facebook gallery in past years.
However, we were pleased with the advertising support we received to make it possible this spring. Out of approximately 110 seniors, all but six filled out our form to participate.
Watch for promos this coming week on where to pick up the prom and graduation tabs from us. We ask for a minimum $5 donation for both. We expect to be at Zeb’s and Gene’s, as well as walk the streets as newsboys. We’ll provide more details soon of where and when to find us.
We will also be in the high school lunchroom Friday as every member of the senior class can receive a copy of each tab for free that day.
Summer
As I mentioned before, we will be open for part of the summer for the first time this year.
To preserve some money, the Times news office will close from May 1 to June 5.
During that time, only sports editor Jack Denebeim will do some work in mid-May as he will cover spring sports at regionals and state with photos and video. The rest of our news operation will be closed for the month.
We will then reopen from June 5 to July 28. We are pleased to have the funding to do so and to have Sara and Jack on board this summer.
We are also exploring starting a Junior Reporters Club this summer for local kids.
We will update later on our fall staffing plans.
Coming up
Much of the existence of The Eudora Times has been during the pandemic when my schedule has been slower. Normally, I spend a fair amount of time each year traveling to do public speaking about journalism and history as part of my regular day job. This is now picking up again.
This fall, I am headed to Wales for a few days to discuss news deserts – areas without access to local news – and will talk about The Eudora Times.
With both this and the growth of The Times, it’s important to bring in some more help. Therefore, this fall, my Journalism School colleague Steve Wolgast will start becoming more involved with the Times to offer additional faculty support and help when I am absent.
In the near term, this week will be monumental for us as we await word if we receive a national fellowship that would grant us our first full-time reporter. We will find out by Tuesday.
We will also hear soon what reporting awards we won for our work last year.
We thank you all for your support of us. If you would like to make a donation to support us and continue our growth, you can send a check made out to KU Endowment with Eudora Times in the memo line to
Teri Finneman
1435 Jayhawk Blvd
Stauffer-Flint Hall
Lawrence, KS 66045
Or you may make an online donation here.
We’re proud to serve the community and do what we can.
Teri Finneman is editor and publisher of The Eudora Times.
