Just over 10 years ago, I opened up the City View office on Main Street, Airdrie and on March 5, 2002 the first paper was delivered to your door.
Actually, by today’s standards, it was only delivered to about half the doors in Airdrie – that’s how much Airdrie has grown in the past 10 years.
That first paper tried its best not to make it out on time. I remember it snowed a lot that night and the press was delayed in printing the paper due to several malfunctions. But, in the end, I brought it back to Airdrie and we got it out to the homes with the help of Advanced Distribution.
Airdrie has seen tremendous growth over the past decade and the City View has been reporting on all of it as we grew.
During those first couple years, there were plenty of sleepless nights as I worked late, and a lot of wondering if we were going to make it through to the next payroll.
However, after the first year, a lot of growing up and a lot of learning helped the paper survive and thrive.
During the next few years, we concentrated on cementing our place in the city; the bills were paid and there was a little left over at the end of day. As Airdrie grew, so did the City View and in 2008, I had the opportunity to sell the paper to Great West Publishing. It was the perfect time to join this great organization. Since then, we have moved the Rocky View Weekly into our office in Airdrie and our staff has grown to 15. We continue to put out our best in local news, sports and community events.
I have a lot of people to thank for our success.
Topping the list is the community, for picking up the paper each week and thumbing through the stories, and our advertisers for believing in our product and supporting for the past 520 issues.
I also have to thank several people and companies personally. Thank you, Ed Eggerer for finding me that first office and Century 21 for that first front page ad.
Also, thank you, Al and Lois Jones of Advanced Distribution, for delivering the paper to the houses of Airdrie for the past 10 years. Without your dedication to your company and your staff, my paper wouldn’t have succeeded as it did.
I have a lot of staff to thank as well, but mostly to Mike Brown, my first editor who worked a lot of late nights with me finishing up the paper and covering everything from photos, council, sports and layout. Your hard work those first few years will never be forgotten.
And to my current friend and editor Nathan Anderson who took over the reins a few years later and along with his wife Denice designing ads, it took our paper to that next level that we needed.
The city of Airdrie has embraced us and accepted us as part of the community and as their source of information about the community. The past 10 years have been very exciting and I look forward to being a part of this community with the newspaper and beyond.
Thank you, Airdrie.
Cam Christianson, Publisher, Rocky View Publishing
