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Editorial

The Spirit of Friendship and the Gift of Giving

Giving. That’s the spirit of the holiday season, however you celebrate it. In all the hustle and bustle that comes this time of year, it’s easy to forget. True, we may spend hours, even days, running hither-nither buying gifts, but the gift of giving must come from the heart.

We at Bay Weekly were reminded of that this past weekend as we relocated our two offices to one central location in two frenzied days — an impossible feat without the help of our dedicated staff and the goodwill of many friends.

Last Friday, Erin Huebschman, Dawn Gray, Diana Beechener, Lisa Knoll and Alex Knoll showed up for work at the Annapolis office. But this was not our usual day at the office. With the help and muscle of Kenny Conner and two of his own employees from Central Marine Construction, Greg Luckett and J.C. Fowler, a ton of files, computers and more were loaded and relocated to the new office. As that fine team unloaded, Jim Walter, who delivers papers through northern Anne Arundel, battled an army of wires getting our phone system up and running.

The next day was moving day in Deale, where Allen Delaney, Kevin Hall, Ben Miller and Gary Pendleton joined staffers Betsy Kehne, Clara Gonzalez de Hall, Alex Knoll, Sandra Martin and Bill Lambrecht to load up and move out.

Back at the new office, that crew joined Lisa Knoll, Matt Pugh, Carrie Madren, Margaret Tearman, Erin Huebschman, Diana Beechener, Mark Behuncik, Bill and Eleanor Wohlfeld, Val and Jim Lester and Dotty Doherty in the daunting task of getting everything settled.

Without the time and assistance given by these many friends, we couldn’t have accomplished such a Herculean task, and to them we say thanks.

We say thanks, as well, for the gift of our readers, advertisers and friends, who have helped us grow for the better part of 15 years.

Since Day One, we have called the sleepy hamlet of Deale our home. When we began as New Bay Times, in April of 1993, Deale was an ideal choice, situated smack-dab in the middle of the Chesapeake Corridor stretching from Anne Arundel to Calvert County. Deale was also central to our idea of a greater community, with folks in cities, towns and country united by Chesapeake Bay, its history, its people and the issues confronting us all.

We opened shop in a small office jutting out from Tri-State Marine. Over a period of seven and a half years we worked there, elbow to elbow, trying hard to establish ourselves and to win the trust of readers and advertisers alike.

Time came when we were cramped too tight, like a crab ready to shed its shell, and we moved down the road into a one-time summer cottage across from Happy Harbor and overlooking Rockhold Creek. With the move, we morphed from New Bay Times to Bay Weekly, changing our name — but never our mission — to better reflect what it is we are.

After several years, space again became too small to accommodate our growing team, and we opened a small second office on West Street in Annapolis. And therein lay the rub: We had space, but it came at a cost.

As family-owned newspapers across the country have suffered, we have grown thanks to loyal readers like you, the trusting business owners whose ads support these pages, and a creative and dedicated staff working together toward the same goals. With two offices, keeping the team’s energies united became a challenge.

So we set out to find an office affordable for a free newspaper and big enough to hold all our creative energies under one roof. We found such a home at 1629 Forest Drive in Annapolis.

Yes, we’re leaving behind a lot of history — but not the friends we’ve made nor the inroads we’ve built.

You’ll still find your Bay Weekly at the usual spots from Severna Park to Solomons Island. In fact, over the next year you’ll be finding Bay Weekly in more and more places in your own neighborhood.

You’ll still find the same stories you’ve come to expect from Bay Weekly, stories that bring you a smile, stories that introduce you to neighbors near and far, stories that add — we hope — meaning to your life.

That’s our gift to you, our readers, our advertisers and our friends: our pledge that even in a world of change, the free, independent newspaper you hold in your hands will only get better.