When I drove to Cranbrook last week to meet with my fellow Glacier Media East Kootenay newspaper publishers the possibility that we were about to learn our newspapers had been sold had not entered my mind. But that was the message delivered by our vice-president whom I enjoyed working with for the last four-and-a-half years.

Fernie publisher Pierre Pelletier said he had joked, “We should buy Lorne a beer if he can remember all the of the owners he’s worked for at the Advance.” I didn’t get that beer but I can certainly name them, now six in total.

I came to Creston in 1979 fresh from journalism school, eager to get some real experience in newspapers and to start our family in a small community. Bill and Sue Betcher were the owners of the Advance, having purchased the business from founder Alex Carruthers the year before. Carruthers started the Advance on Dec. 18, 1948, as the Valley Advert, the first issue of which hangs framed on our office wall.

The interview with the Betchers went well and I immediately felt like Creston was a place I could happily work and live in. Five years was my goal. I cancelled a planned interview with Burt Campbell, owner of the Castlegar News and started as a reporter-photographer a few weeks later.

We published two issues a week back then, along with an eight-page TV guide, and after a year I moved into the advertising manager’s position. The joy of a small-town, non-union newspaper operation is that one can wear many hats. I continued to write business stories and opinion columns while selling advertising and creating the ads. Production days were high-pressure affairs and I often started work at 2 a.m. to make sure the paper was ready to be printed, in our basement pressroom, in the afternoon, ready for our carriers to pick up right after school.

A few years later, Helena White, who had been the Advance news editor when I started out, returned to the fold when she and her husband Don purchased the business. Don left his high school teaching position to manage the print shop, and together the Whites continued the fine tradition that Alex Carruthers started. We produced a genuine small-town newspaper, focusing on local events and activities and we felt like we were making an important contribution to the Creston Valley.

The Whites eventually accepted an offer to sell the Advance to the Sterling chain of newspapers, one of whose owners was Conrad Black, though David Radler had the real responsibility of operating the business. Eventually, that purchase would lead to the end of a pressroom in the basement — Sterling owned the Cranbrook Daily Townsman, too, and it was more practical to centralize print production than to try to maintain an aging press.

I left the newspaper business for more than decade in 1993, but continued to write This is the Life. When I returned, to fill in a temporary reporting vacancy, the Advance was owned by Hollinger, the umbrella company of which Sterling had been a tiny part. I became publisher of a Hollinger newspaper, but it was well-known that Hollinger was going to sell its holdings in this region.

Four-and-a-half-years ago, Glacier Media Group purchased the former chain of Sterling papers — Grand Forks Gazette, Trail Daily Times, Nelson Daily News, Cranbrook Daily Townsman, Kimberley Daily Bulletin, the Free Press in Fernie and the Advance. A relatively new player in the community newspaper business, Glacier invested a lot in bringing its newspapers up-to-date technologically.

Times change, though, and the rate seems to increase with each passing day. The purchase of the Advance by Black Press is a positive one in many different ways, not least because it makes us feel wanted by a very successful community newspaper operation. Small community papers like Creston, Fernie, Trail and Grand Forks have great loyalty among their readers and advertisers who appreciate that we remain the best source of local information.

The Creston Valley Advance has never wavered in its commitment to be a strong, positive part of our community and that will not change. Our seven employees remain passionate about our newspaper and this Creston Valley we live in, and that won’t change either. We will adapt to the changes necessary under new ownership, but will work tirelessly to ensure they don’t deflect us from what we do best, being a voice for the people in a place we call home.

Lorne Eckersley is the publisher of the Creston Valley Advance.