eightyone - last issue

It's only been a few months since we picked up our first copy of this monthly local. I've enjoyed the web page as well as the hardcopy, which we've picked up at Clementines on our bi-monthly visits to H-burg. Turns out, the publication is ending its run with a final issue that is on newstands now - a sad loss for the community, as the commitment the editor and staff showed is a real treasure. There is a link to eightyone's web site at the end of this post.

In perusing the hard copy of the April 2009 edition (the March cover is shown here), the cover story is called "Tough Love" and is about Harrisonburg's Gemeinschaft Home (http://www.gemeinschafthome.com/). This organization provides community services and support for people transitioning from prison back to society, and given the current economic environment, needs funding and contributions. The article is a good example of the extent of eightyone's coverage of the local community in H-burg.

Other stories, highlighted in Editor/Publisher Deona Landes Houff's final column, included an October 2000 story about the 1950's bulldozing of an African American neighborhood in Harrisonburg, and a June 2006 story about the prosecution of four Kurdish men who had immigrated to Harrisonburg.

On-line, I only recently discovered an informal poll called "Three Questions" - and answered a recent one "What is the prettiest spot in the Valley?" Here is part of the answer I gave, which was published in the April hardcopy:

Pretty views are too numerous to count in the Valley. Three come to mind: the view of Page Valley from George Washington National Forest's Storybook Trail, the view of the North Fork Seven Bends from the Woodstock Tower, and the view northwest from Calvary Rocks in Shenandoah National Park.

I like the local press, and eightyone was an excellent example of this kind of community resource. Although I only recently became familiar with it, I'm sorry to see it go. In her farewell column, Deona says she hopes to bulk up the site (http://www.eightyone.info/), with archives - which I look forward to leafing through, and hope to post about sometime in the future.

Thanks eightyone, farewell, we hardly knew you.