The Little Newspaper That Could
September 19th, 2024
Happy 30th Birthday HPR
By John Strand
Thirty years ago some gutsy UND student journalists hanging at Whitey’s in East Grand Forks got enough liquid courage to create their own damn newspaper. Then with drinks raised, they toasted the paper’s name, the High Plains Reader. The first issue was dated September 8, 1994.
There's been a lot of water under the bridge since then. Hundreds of editions, thousands of pages and bylines. Countless contributors and advertisers. The fact that The Little Newspaper That Could still exists is testimony to heart, community and hope — yes, hope for better tomorrows for our people. And that means you.
While not being too dour, we also have a list of anchor contributors and writers who have died. Their legacies continue, however, in the annals of HPR.
Started in Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, after new ownership in December 1996 and then the historic flood of 1997, HPR established its base in Fargo to simply survive. The next near-deadly blow came with the Pandemic of 2020.
Yet here we still are, a monthly now, but alive and kicking. And with a broader audience, as HPR can be found in Jamestown, Valley City, Dickinson, Grand Forks and East Grand Forks, Fargo, Moorhead and West Fargo. We publish 10,000 issues on the third Thursday of each month and estimate our print readership to be over 20,000. Online at hpr1.com there are another estimated 10,000 monthly readers.
The High Plains Reader never did match any description of an alternative newspaper. We are in North Dakota, after all. But we did have our days with the bustling personals which fuel such papers for a moment in time. We always laid claim to the arts, entertainment and film worlds locally.
We never used the F word in headlines, yet fearlessly took on the establishment and Old Boys Network time and again.
HPR was (and is) a voice for those too often voiceless in our community. Our tent is wide, welcoming and open, our extended family as diverse as we could be here in the hinterland. Our backbone has sometimes been all that existed between marginalized, easily targeted people and the belligerent and bulldozing leadership — locally and at the state level.
Gay Rights. Women’s Rights. Minority Rights. The Disabled. BIPOC. Trans. Poor People. Our list is the right list and on the right side of history. HPR pushed the envelope countless times — and unapologetically. We are a better community because of HPR and its empathetic army of contributors.
Changing times and eras reflect our journey as well as our challenges. Thirty years ago, The Reader was likely the first North Dakota newspaper paginated with computers versus the old wax and paste layout. The first tab newspaper. The first four-color newspaper, generally. The most highly circulated non-daily paper in the state by far, for years.
We are the first editorially driven, non-subscription newspaper that survived. The first new newspaper in Fargo to survive more than 30 months in…
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