Your hometown newspaper will soon be under new management, again.

In 2016, when my brother and I purchased The Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader from Scott and Jennifer Wilson, I was taking the reins of a newspaper for my first time. 

We were initially welcomed by this community with mostly open arms until someone wrote graffiti on the front of the building which read, “OUR paper.” 

It was written in chalk and easily washed away with the help of a garden hose but the message lingers. 

The Leader will continue to be, as it has been for 134 years, your paper. 

It’s only been seven years but when I began managing this paper I had the dubious honor of being the youngest newspaper publisher in Washington state’s history. 

Saying I lacked the necessary experience is an understatement. Luckily our readers and our advertisers knew what they wanted and needed in their newspaper and our crew guided me through those first few years.

By 2019 The Leader brought home General Excellence honors from the Washington Newspaper Publishers Association’s annual convention. That award is judged by our peers in this industry and is generally considered to distinguish its recipient as the best newspaper in the state (based on circulation).  Yes, even with its typos and grammatical errors, we were named the best in the state. Take that, you grammer Nazis! That same year I stepped down as the Leader’s publisher to work as creative director for the Shelton-Mason County Journal. A year later, half way into the pandemic, my parents bought my brother’s share of The Leader. But all the while, my wife and I maintained our home here in Port Townsend, keeping The Leader under local ownership.

In January I returned as the publisher, with the intent to hire and train someone else to guide The Leader. 

And I am happy to report that readership and advertising have been growing by leaps and bounds. That is in no small part to the the person we hired to assume the publisher’s duties. 

Who is this new manager? Her name is Laura Jean Schneider and she’s worked for The Leader twice before. She’s an award-winning writer and advertising representative, and we have confidence that her vision for this newspaper reflects and (we hope) challenges the community.

You may have noticed a couple of Leader projects spearheaded by Schneider – The Who’s Who Under 40, which featured up-and-coming leaders in our community, and last week’s Working Waterfront, which took award-winning photographer Jeremy Johnson on a boat ride to Alaska. 

Schneider will be taking stepping in  Aug. 1 and we are eager to see what she will accomplish with the help of this great newspaper staff and our beautiful community.