With the last publication of our daily edition on Saturday as we transition to a free weekly newspaper next week, we'd like to hear from you.
Longtime staff here at The Citizen (that's most of us, actually) have stories to tell - many of them utterly unfit for publication - but the newspaper has always been the place for your stories, not so much ours.
We're just the messengers, after all.
So with that in mind, I'm hoping you would share with us - and the community - your stories and recollections about what having a daily newspaper in Prince George has meant to you.
It can be anything from fond recollections of delivering the paper with a child or grandchild on a cold, winter morning (or afternoon if the story dates back to when The Citizen was an afternoon newspaper) to a story or photo that changed your life or has huge sentimental value.
Maybe you'd just like to tell us how much reading The Citizen each morning over a cup of coffee before heading out to start your day meant to you over the years. Maybe you'd like to remind us about your favourite mistake or silly goof up we made from back in the day.
Just to get your memories flowing, here are two of my own memories since I joined The Citizen in November 1999:
I had nearly forgotten my favourite headline that I ever got to write until I saw it on a bulletin board above the desk of Jeff Kozoris at the Prince George Public Library, when I had the pleasure of working with him every day for two years. A man had stumbled into a local convenience store late one night bleeding profusely because his hand had been amputated and he wouldn't tell Prince George RCMP what had happened or who did it. The police issued a press release stating the incident was targeted and gang related. The spokesperson included a cheeky comment assuring local residents that no one was going around collecting hands. With that in mind, I wrote the headline "Attack stumps police." As if that wasn't bad enough, reporter Ted Clarke piped up with this idea for a secondary headline - "Victim refuses to finger assailant." Putting that on the top of the front page earned me a red-faced reprimand from a not-amused managing editor Dave Paulson but I'm told it was passed around the RCMP detachment to hearty laughter.
I tested Dave's patience with me as the night news editor regularly but he loved one bold move I made (although Colleen Sparrow - now the publisher but then the circulation manager - hates this story). The day editors had run a long piece from The Associated Press on the entertainment page about The Simpsons having reached a significant TV history milestone that I don't remember. Suddenly the idea came to me to tease the story on the top of the front page with a picture of the show's beloved characters standing around The Citizen's masthead but remade to look just like the famous The Simpsons logo that emerges from the clouds at the start of each episode. Designer Grace Flack whipped up the remade logo and, for one day anyhow, we looked like we were Springfield's daily newspaper.
So many to tell but I bet your stories are way better and I'd certainly like to read them and publish some of them on Saturday, our final edition as a daily newspaper. Please email them to me at ngodbout@pgcitizen.ca.
After that, you'll find us every Thursday (you can already turn to us anytime you want online) where we look forward to making some new memories with you for years to come.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
