News : Vinton Today turns 5 Years Old Today!

Is it awful to just say up front that I wasn't sure how long or IF Vinton Today would work?

As we ventured into this crazy endeavor, we sat in the home of the Karrs, along with Don Eells, and Wesley McElwey and discussed what we were about to attempt.

Being the optimist one in the bunch, Kurt assured us that he was sure this would work.

Having been in the news business a long time, I've seen how these meeting and ideas tend to go.

You start with a great idea, and start implementing it, and eventually the politics of the job derails it all.

I remember thinking, "Alright, what have we got to lose? I mean other than the house..."

The first 3 months were pretty rough, we managed to get through that and to our first year.

Still not fully grasping how we were doing, we realized that we needed to ask for you our readers to support us.

We needed equipment and had a website to maintain.

The only thing we could do was ask, as much as we hated to have to do it. But we did.

Each year around our birthday/anniversary we have asked you, our loyal readers to please lend us a hand and help us get through the next year.

Every year, you have come through and helped to make this one of, if not the most far reaching website in Benton County.

We usually just keep our nose to the grindstone, and keep cranking out the news to you. But once a year we check our numbers just to see how we are doing.

This year we were pleasantly surprised with our reach.

Let's look at the numbers.

2 worker bees who have taken 4 days off in the last 5 years. Yes, for the most part we are pecking away 24/7, weekends and holidays included.

By the time the day is over, we will reach 13.5 MILLION visits to the site.

Most days we clear about 20,000.

Our Facebook connection has been one of the most impressive. We are at 2,897 fans. Through Facebook, our posts have reached over 100,000 in one week!

We are still trying to wrap our head around these numbers.

While the traditional newspapers are trying to stay viable, we have found a way to bring more news, more quickly and more directly.

We aren't just guessing, how many people are reading the site, we have access to the numbers.We know how many are reading Vinton Today.

We also discovered that we are now being read often around the world as well.

When our daughter was a little girl, at night for her bedtime prayers, we would bow our heads and thank God for our day, and pray for our family. At the end of her prayer she would also add, and "Please let people all around the world read daddy's articles." You know how I pointed out at the beginning that I'm a pessimist, back in the 90's the internet was just starting real well, but we could have never dreamed that this was at all possible.

We have readers in Mexico, and Canada, India and France. I can't remember all the countries, but it's amazing.

This is all great, but we also know that we can't reach ANYBODY without the support of the wonderful folks in Vinton, from Vinton and folks that like to read about Vinton.

Many of our readers are in the stage of life where they don't get out much. You are helping to deliver the news directly to them.

Thanks so much for lending a hand again this year, and for again, taking the time to donate.

We have made it simple this year.

You can simply click here to donate, and you don't need any special account online to do this, just your debit or credit card.

If you prefer to send a check, you can still do that. Simply address it to: Vinton Today, P.O. Box 477, Vinton, Iowa 52349.

Either way, we thank YOU, for helping to keep US here! By helping to keep us online, you are helping to tell the world how great our town of Vinton really is!

Please take a moment now, we'll still be here when you get back!

And, thank for standing with us!