Taking Chances

Come September, HPR turns 14 years old. As we contemplate our celebration, we are reminded of the journey getting here. How did The Little Newspaper That Could get from where it started to where it is?
A lot of it has to do with risk.

HPR never has been – nor will it ever be – your typical news vehicle.  We take pride in giving voice to the underdogs, to the minority, to the individual person who very often feels left out of the picture.

The Reader is somewhat custom-fit to our region and its people. It is not alternative like most alternative papers across the country are. Nor is it a mouthpiece of the establishment.

We are constantly challenged to reinvent how we do business, how we see things, how we give voice to people and issues.

The evaluation of risk is a way of life. Seldom do we have guarantees about how or where things will go. There is some discomfort in that.

A local business leader we admire greatly sometimes refers to what he calls the irrational optimism associated with entrepreneurial ventures. There has to be something in that.

Robert Frost would inspire you to take the road less traveled.

Over the years, HPR has provided countless examples of people taking significant chances. Our cover stories time and again feature artists, musicians, individuals and groups who make a mark on our world, who have messages worth sharing, who have vision and insight. In doing that, we support others taking contemplating worthwhile risk.

HPR’s letters section, affectionately called Dear John, is a direct platform for our readers to speak out, to advocate. There is hardly anything more powerful than a letter to the editor from a real person about something close to their heart. Such letters often contribute to change.

The Reader has grown its extended family far and wide. When people we know grieve, we grieve with them. When they have reason to celebrate, we celebrate with and for them.

It is not uncommon for HPR to be a conduit for people to share some of the most significant, powerful moments of their life. Recently, HPR columnist Deb Jenkins wrote her first-ever letter to the editor to voice her shock and utter grief about a musician brutally murdered, the lead musician of a band of which her son is a member. This week, HPR columnist Susie Ekberg writes a gripping, powerful piece about her precious mother’s death only last week; Libby Walkup, a generation younger, comes to terms with mortality, her family’s and hers.

HPR’s Chris Jacobs in Grand Forks has been part of this newspaper’s journey every single week since its inception.
The Reader is proud to present provocative opinion pieces like those penned by Ed Raymond. He is constantly taking chances.

While we are certainly not on the winning sides of some issues, we do try give voice to the people when it is for the greater public good. Taking chances is a good motto. It is a good approach to life.

North Dakota is worth betting on, as is its future. HPR and its readers play an important role in the debate, in the shaping of our tomorrows.

This September, we will be inviting all of you to help us celebrate 14 years of taking Chances. Us, you, all of us taking chances on each other – the way it is supposed to be.