Five years of stories, and a future together

Thursday, Nov. 5 was a mile­stone for WinCity Voices — and for me.

Nearly 60 peo­ple — con­tent con­trib­u­tors and finan­cial sup­port­ers of WinCity — gath­ered in Taylor Hall at Emmanuel Episcopal Church to cel­e­brate our five-year anniver­sary and unveil our first pub­lished vol­ume. We shared a won­der­ful catered meal and, just as impor­tant, time with one another.

The new book, Our Stories, Our Voices: A 5‑Year Anniversary Collection, is an anthol­o­gy of some of our best work to date, cho­sen by the authors them­selves. The full-col­or, hard­bound, cof­fee-table book is now avail­able for sale to the public.

The col­lec­tion ranges from fea­tures, com­men­taries, and his­tor­i­cal sketch­es to pho­tog­ra­phy, poet­ry, and visu­al art.

We revealed the book for the first time at the anniver­sary din­ner, which also includ­ed a silent auc­tion, door prizes, and inspir­ing talks.

As one of the co-founders of WinCity Voices, along with Chuck Witt, I am deeply grat­i­fied by the out­pour­ing of sup­port from our community.

Running a dig­i­tal news­room in an era when news­pa­pers are down­siz­ing and clos­ing for good is a mon­u­men­tal chal­lenge. Doing so as a non­prof­it, with­out charg­ing for sub­scrip­tions or accept­ing adver­tis­ing, makes it hard­er still.

But we have been com­mit­ted to this free, non­prof­it mod­el from the start.

Soon after launch­ing, Chuck and I saw great poten­tial to grow our fundrais­ing and our cov­er­age of Winchester and Clark County. In 2023, we found­ed WinCity Media as a 501(c)(3) and cre­at­ed a board of direc­tors to over­see WinCity Voices, our pod­cast, and our free week­ly newsletter.

In 2025, we estab­lished a phys­i­cal pres­ence in down­town Winchester at 5 Cleveland Ave.

This year has been espe­cial­ly auspicious. 

We expand­ed our board of direc­tors. It now brings togeth­er tal­ent­ed peo­ple with expe­ri­ence in jour­nal­ism, graph­ic design, human resources, mar­ket­ing, bank­ing, infor­ma­tion tech­nol­o­gy, and more.

We expand­ed beyond fea­tures and com­men­tary into hard news report­ing by hir­ing a sea­soned jour­nal­ist for the first time: Randy Patrick. We are espe­cial­ly proud of Randy’s pro­files of can­di­dates for office and his report­ing on cam­paign events.

Thanks to grants from Press Forward Bluegrass, we were able to employ two interns this year: Zach Ross and Heiraelle Osborne. 

And now we even have a book in print.

The community’s sup­port has grown right along with us. Since the end of our first year, our audi­ence has more than tripled. We have grown from a hand­ful of con­tent con­trib­u­tors to around 40. Between grants and indi­vid­ual dona­tions, we remain ful­ly fund­ed. Winchester and Clark County con­tin­ue to show their enthu­si­as­tic sup­port for free, inde­pen­dent, local journalism.

This was the year I felt that WinCity Media had arrived as a legit­i­mate news orga­ni­za­tion. It was also past time — as my ther­a­pist point­ed out to me — to stop think­ing of all this as “my baby.” WinCity Media belongs to the com­mu­ni­ty that has sus­tained it through these first five years. Our job now is to make sure it lives on long after Chuck and I have stepped away.

To that end, our board will begin work ear­ly next year on a five-year strate­gic plan to car­ry WinCity Media for­ward for future gen­er­a­tions of Clark Countians.

None of this would have been pos­si­ble with­out our finan­cial sup­port­ers and con­tent con­trib­u­tors. I’d also like to thank the busi­ness­es that donat­ed door prizes and auc­tion items for the anniver­sary event:

The Crystal Coven, Hamilton Brooks, Whiskey & Wiles, Winchester-Clark County Tourism, Kettle and Quill Bookery, Mt. Folly Farms, Penguin Potters, Notch Eight Farms, Mimi’s Kitchen, The Book Nook on Main, Winchester Therapeutic Massage, and High Speed Collectables.

Thanks, too, to Ryan-Bloyd Wiseman and Emmanuel Episcopal Church for allow­ing us to use their space for our event.

And a spe­cial thanks to our ded­i­cat­ed board of direc­tors. Neither the book nor the anniver­sary cel­e­bra­tion would have come to fruition with­out their hard work. Our board includes Lashana Harney (pres­i­dent), Rebecca Campomanes (vice pres­i­dent), Chuck Witt (sec­re­tary), Jennifer Koutoulas (trea­sur­er), Randy Patrick, Erin Clark, Donna Carter, and Darryl Terry. I serve as the orga­ni­za­tion’s exec­u­tive director. 

I would also like to express my appre­ci­a­tion to recent­ly retired board mem­ber and my spe­cial friend, Sabrina Puckett. She gave us five years of ser­vice and was instru­men­tal in the ear­ly suc­cess of WinCity Voices.

The future looks bright indeed for WinCity Media and our news prod­ucts. With ded­i­cat­ed writ­ers, lead­ers, and finan­cial sup­port­ers, we will keep grow­ing, keep telling the sto­ries that define and inform our com­mu­ni­ty, and keep those sto­ries free for every­one. Five years in, we have much to cel­e­brate — and much more to do.

Photo gallery. All photos by Heiraelle Osborne.