User Guide

I'm a legacy subscriber with an active subscription that predates the web platform launch.

How do I access the newspaper through the web platform without having to pay for another subscription?

Please create a free member account. Our staff will automatically promote your account to either digital or print subscriber, as appropriate, so you can view the newspaper online. All new and future subscriptions or renewals should be ordered through the web platform.

Individuals residing in the United States can subscribe to the digital or print newspaper. We have different rates for print subscriptions based on whether your are located inside or outside our coverage and service area.

You can use the sign-up form to initate creation of your account. As part of the process, you will be asked to verify your email address by entering the code that was sent to it. Be sure to write down your chosen password offline for reference. Do not share your account or login credentials with anyone. Our staff will never ask you for your password.

Follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once you've created your free account, you can use the chat feature to request contributor access or reach out to our staff by using the contact form.

All contributions to the print newspaper must be first made on the web platform. Follow the above instructions for "How do I submit content for inclusion in the print newspaper?". Our staff reviews all submissions for inclusion in the print newspaper automatically.

Follow the above instructions for "How do I contribute content to the web platform?".

You can publish a self-service obituary on the web platform that will be automatically included in the print newspaper.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the obituaries section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Obituary' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your obituary using the form and editor. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your obituary immediately on the web platform and also add it to print queue for the next weekly newspaper edition. The deadline for inclusion in the newspaper is 5pm EST on Monday for the following Friday edition.

You can publish a self-service classified ad on the web platform that will be automatically included in the print newspaper.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the classifieds section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Classified' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your classified ad using the form and editor. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your classified immediately on the web platform and also add it to print queue for the next weekly newspaper edition. The deadline for inclusion in the newspaper is 5pm EST on Monday for the following Friday edition.

You can publish a self-service LLC listing on the web platform that will be automatically included in the print newspaper for six consecutive editions. Once the print run is complete, our staff will upload a PDF version of the notarized affidavit for you and can send the hard copy by mail upon request.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the llc notices section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Listing' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your LLC listing using the form and editor. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your listing immediately on the web platform and also add it to print queue for the next six consecutive weekly newspaper editions. The deadline for inclusion in the newspaper is 5pm EST on Monday for the following Friday edition.

You can publish a self-service legal notice on the web platform that will be automatically included in the print newspaper. Once the print run is complete, our staff will upload a PDF version of the notarized affidavit for you and can send the hard copy by mail upon request.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the legal notices section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Notice' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your legal notice using the form and editor. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your notice immediately on the web platform and also add it to print queue for the next weekly newspaper edition. The deadline for inclusion in the newspaper is 5pm EST on Monday for the following Friday edition.

You can publish a self-service print display ad on the web platform that will be automatically included in the print newspaper.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the print display ads section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Ad' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your print display ad using the form. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your digital companion ad immediately on the web platform and also add it to print queue for the next weekly newspaper edition. The deadline for inclusion in the newspaper is 5pm EST on Monday for the following Friday edition.

You can publish a self-service business directory listing on the web platform.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the patrons section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Patron' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your listing using the form. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your listing immediately on the web platform.

You can publish a self-service digital ad on the web platform.

To begin, follow the above instructions for "How do I sign up for a free member account?". Once your account has been created, simply navigate to the digital ads section and you should not see a button labelled 'New Digital Ad' aligned to the right just below the page hero.

You can compose your ad using the form. When you are done, you can make secure and immediate payment. This will publish your ad immediately on the web platform.

Ethical Role Boundaries

Our user roles were specifically designed to recognize boundaries that protect the integrity of our journalism and service to the community. The most important of such boundaries is editorial. Patrons and advertisers may not become content contributors and content contributors may not sell in the marketplace. Each user who wishes to contribute must decide whether they wish to do so as advertiser and patrons or as journalists and content contributors. This separation prevents 'article marketing' and other conflicts of interest that blur the boundary between honest reporting and marketing.

Guest or Public Visitor

Any unauthenticated human visitor, bot, or automated process that is communicating with the web platform by making requests for resources.

Free Digital Member

An authenticated member who holds an active unpaid account in good standing.

Digital Subscriber

An authenticated member who has an active digital subscription to the newspaper.

Print Subscriber

An authenticated member who has an active print subscription to the newspaper.

Independent Contributor

An authenticated member who is approved to contribute content.

Advertising Patron

An authenticated member who advertises or represents an advertiser who maintains digital ads on the web platform and/or print ads in the newspaper.

Staff Journalist

A compensated member of our staff who contributes original news and reporting.

Delivery Route Driver

A compensated member of our staff who drives a weekly disribution route which delivers the latest printed newspaper editions to news stands and post offices throughout our service area.

Staff Photographer

A compensated member of our staff who contributes original photography and photo journalism.

Graphic Designer

A compensated member of our staff who assists our advertising patrons with the preparation, design and production of advertising proofs and copy.

Advertising Sales Agent

A compensated member of our staff who expands and serves the diverse needs of our loyal, growing base of advertising patrons.

Notary Public

A staff registered notary public or registered online notary who provides notarized affadavits required for LLC listings and legal notices.

Section Editor

A section editor has editor control over a newspaper brand or section, deciding which content will appear in that section in each weekly print edition.

Chief Editor

The chief editor has ultimate and final editorial control, deciding which content will appear in each weekly print edition based on submissions from the section editors.

They are responsible for newspaper layout and are the creator of each PDF which is printed as a weekly edition.

Operations Manager

The operations manager oversees general operations of the print side of the business. This may involve a wide variety of tasks that include managing logistics, collecting and processing mail, event coordination, internal communications, and handling banking and financial transactions. The operations manager also works closely with our strategic partners to coordinate joint operations when and where they are needed.

Digital Platform Administrator

The digital platform administrator is responsible for directly serving our members through the web platform. They perform customer service, technical support, social media coordination, and membership engagement initiatives.

They also serve as a bridge between the digital and print sides of the business, routing digital submissions to the print side and vice versa.

Digital Platform Developer

The developer is responsible for the development, repair, and maintenance of the web platform. This involves a mixture of both hardware and software skills and experience.

Job functions may include, but are not limited to: hardware builds, setup, configuration, and problem solving; systems architecture; scripting and programming; web server administration; sales engineering; senior technical support and hotfixes; network and data center administration; database design and administration; email server administration; log analysis and troubleshooting; perform and manage integration with socket based real-time streams, web hooks, endpoints, file storage, payment processors, AI automation, blockchain, and other remote cloud services.

• Enjoy an ad and tracker free experience

  We exist to serve our local community and that begins with offering a top notch experience to all of our web visitors.

  We do not include third party trackers or cookies. We do not participate in any external advertising revenue schemes. We do not share our site visitor analytics with any third parties. We do monetize our data in any way.

  No popup ads. No annoying calls to action that seemingly appear out of nowhere while you're trying to use a feature. No paywalls on our web content. No sensationalist appeals about democracy dying if your don't immediately open your wallet. Paid subscriptions are only required for the newspaper.

  We endeavor to provide you with quick loading screens that are free of bloat. We do not saddle your with large web libraries that hog your local system resources and slow down your device.

  We're accessible and accountable

  Unlike many large scale operations that feel extractive and impersonal, we're here instead to earn and keep your trust. We believe that begins with the way you are treated when you are here as our guest.

  We're accessible and accountable. Our staff lives and works in the same region as the members, subscribers, and patrons that we serve. We pride ourselves on responsive and friendly service. We aim to build and maintain long and substainable relationships, where success is mutually encouraged, celebrated, and shared.

  Our infrastructure is located in our service area. We own and operate our own on-prem data center, networking equipment, and compute hardware. Our high speed fiber Internet connectivity is provided by Midtel, our locally owned telco. We exercise direct responsibility and custody over our databases and data. We operate our own trusted secure email infrastructure that complies with all current configuration and routing standards such as: PTR/Reverse Domain, DKIM, SPF, and DMARC. Our proprietary enterprise applications are sophisticated, secure, and modern. Our platform can handle and serve tens of thousands of concurrent requests per second.

• Read published articles

  Our full library of articles covering news, features and original essays is available to all site visitors without a paywall.

  We reserve all intellectual property and licensing rights over all of our own originally authored and published content as well as our web platform itself. All of our content is free to access and use within the boundaries set forth by our copyright policy.

• Review scheduled area events

• Check regional weather

• Listen to streaming radio

• View photo albums and videos

• Discover aggregated news feeds

• Explore our county guides

• Learn about The Mountain Eagle

• Access help, legal, and support information

• Contact our digital team

• Sign-up for a free member account

• Subscribe to the digital and/or print newspaper

• Aggregate our RSS feed

• Load our sitemaps

• Render our images

• This content is restricted to authenticated members. To view member processes, please sign in or create a free member account.