Dear reader,
In one of my earlier memories from growing up in Big Sky, I’m sitting next to my friend circa 2004 in her father’s Chevy Suburban on the way to school. We’re driving by a vast, empty field.
“When you girls are older, this won’t be a field,” my friend’s dad said. “This will be full of buildings.”
I remember exchanging looks of pure disbelief with my friend.
“No way,” we said, laughing.
Today, April 6, 2022, I’m sitting outside our newsroom looking at that same field, only it’s not a field anymore. It’s the Town Center.
For better or for worse, Big Sky is changing. More people are moving here to enjoy the mountains, the rivers, the small community. We have a movie theater. The single-hallway school I attended since I was 5 now has two buildings. Big Sky Resort chairlifts have bubbles. Big Sky doesn’t look the same.
If you’ve been with us for a while now, reader, you may have also noticed that Explore Big Sky newspaper is changing. A growing community means more news. Our small reporting team works hard to be in as many places at once, all while becoming quick studies on local issues, events and breaking news. In order to continue serving you with the news we think you deserve, we’re hiring a new staff writer to augment our already dedicated team.
The amount of news we bring you isn’t the only thing that’s changed. So has the delivery. Both the pandemic and an evolving news industry have forced us to innovate over the last few years. We now not only serve you with news from our print paper, but with a daily newsletter, a website and social media, and we continue to seek out avenues to provide you with quality, timely news from your community in fresh and exciting ways.
To improve your reader experience, we’ve collaborated with our fabulous designer, ME Brown, to give our printed issues of EBS a facelift. While this paper does and will continue to contain all the best news from the region, we hope you’ll enjoy fresh design and a new paper format as you flip through the pages over coffee, on a park bench (maybe even on the chairlift?), or wherever you dive into this next edition.
Beginning this issue, our paper will also be available a day earlier—Thursdays instead of Fridays—so we can get a copy in your hand that much sooner.
You may also notice your Town Crier newsletter looks a little bit different. In addition to all the same content you love, we’re sprucing up our daily email to you and adding a weekly event calendar. To see what’s going on in Big Sky, scroll the bottom of your email. For more information on each event, click on the calendar to be directed to explorebigsky.com.
Through all the changes, thanks for sticking with us.
-Bella Butler
Managing Editor
