Around the beginning of 2007 I got the harebrained idea of starting a newspaper in Dayton. It was called Blue Mountain News and it came out approximately monthly. Though I always enjoyed writing, I had no background in journalism and really didn't know what I was doing.

But with the help of two long-time and very talented staff members, Tanya and Vanessa, we cranked out 51 issues of BMN over exactly five years. We covered news and events throughout the Touchet Valley. It was great fun, but it ran its course.

At the beginning of 2013, after a brief stint at the Walla Walla Union-Bulletin, ag...