Editorial: We’re starting our 30th year of service to this community

On Jan. 5, 1995, the Belleville-Area Independent published its first paper and has continued every Thursday since then. On Jan. 5, 2024 we mark completion of the 29th year of service and the start of our 30th year.
We’ve seen a lot over the years and shared most of it with our readers. Some readers we talk to now say they have been reading the Independent their whole lives and they remember their parents showing them where to pick it up at the Red Apple restaurant or various gas stations.
The weekly newspaper was formed by about a dozen local residents who thought The View newspaper in town was biased in its stories. I was the only one they knew who had experience with newspapers. I had just moved back here from Colorado where I was Sunday editor at a daily paper. My mother had fallen and my dad had died, so she was living alone. I came back to take care of her, which I did for 12 years. She was one of the 12 original investors in the Independent, along with my brother and his wife.
My mother, brother, and sister-in-law have all passed on, but here we are still publishing local news. The investors wanted people to know what was going on whether they could pay for a paper or not, so the paper always has been free.
Thank you for supporting the Independent over the years and sharing your stories and pictures. We hope to keep you informed for many years to come.