For the past two years, we have done everything possible at the Eudora Times to show the community why having a full-time newspaper matters.

Yet, it still wasn’t enough. No matter how many times we said it was critical to have donations to support local news, the financial support was only a fraction of what we need.

As such, as Sara announced, our days with a full-time reporter are coming to an end in early September.

We will be taking a step back to where we were two years ago and going back to being a part-time newspaper with student reporters who juggle their duties here with being full-time students who also have other side jobs to pay the bills.

We will also be open fewer weeks per year. Instead of being open 48 weeks per year, it will be closer to 42.

That means a whole lot less coverage for this community. But like any other business, we can’t operate with money we don’t have. The journalism school was generous this past year using special non-taxpayer Endowment funds to help keep us going, but with the federal government threatening higher education left and right, funding needs to be preserved for critical operations. The goal all along was for Eudora to step up and for us to be self-supporting by now.

I’ve always been transparent in these pages about our operations. I know we’ve had comments that we aren’t a “real” newspaper since we don’t have a printed edition.

Since starting this newspaper 6½ years ago, we’ve brought in about $137,000 total through donations and a major grant. We then have some supplementary private foundation money that supports students as well. But we need to be making that much per year, not every six years, if people want a full-time printed newspaper.

As I’ve said over and over and over, if everyone in town gave us even $20 a year, we’d be fine. But they don’t. So we aren’t.

Before Sara leaves, we’ll host an open house for her for the community to come by and thank her for everything that she has done for you for the past three years. We’ll announce the details at a later date.

She’s sat through endless City Commission and School Board meetings so you didn’t have to. She’s greatly enhanced coverage of the senior citizen community in town. She’s taken the lead on the magazines we’ve produced and the fun things we do like the cookie contest and pet march madness.

There’s no doubt the town will be quieter without her there, and it’s a major loss in service for Eudora.

We sure hope the community will step up in the coming year to help us become financially stable and eventually return us to providing this service for you on a more full-time basis. Clicking the donate button directly below is the first step.

After several years of growth, it’s difficult that we have to go backwards now and lose someone as committed to this town as Sara has been. It’s up to you to help make sure it’s the last time we do.