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Stories from Drayton; an adventure in journalism begins

By Jane Earle

It sounded like a good idea at the time, like a nice thing to do. It was simple: a group who had once worked at one or the other of the Denver daily newspapers would journey north to a small town in North Dakota there to put out the local newspaper for two weeks. The idea was to give the overworked and harried owner/editor of the newspaper two weeks of rest, something he is otherwise unlikely to get for the duration of his newspaper ownership.

This impulse of human kindness was the brainchild of Dick Johnson who discussed the notion…

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Photo by Graham Phipps taken on the historic Phipps Ranch in southern Colorado

The Great American Newspaper

The Great American Newspaper

    In 1826, there were perhaps 40 newspapers in the nascent United States, nearly all of them written for and by special interests. They were publications with names that proclaimed their subjects and their readers: the Shipping News, the Farmer as well as those dedicated to one political party or another. Newspapers published as commercial enterprises for general consumption were still in the future.

    The year 1826 was a watershed for the young republic. Two of the giants of the Revolution died that year, their deaths coming within hours of each other and both on July 4, the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died that day, each taking comfort in his final hours from the knowledge that the other still lived. Their deaths ended the nation’s last ties to the revolutionary generation. James Monroe had been the last president among the revolutionaries to serve his country in that office. John Quincy Adams, who was in the presidential chair that year, had watched the battle of Bunker Hill but he was only seven years old at the time. He was, nevertheless, a transitional figure, having traveled to Europe with his father when the John Adams had been in ambassadorial posts. When he left office in 1829, the United States moved immediately into the next phase of its nationhood.

    Andrew Jackson was the first president to have been born on the frontier and brought a new egalitarianism… Read More

French Beach

French Beach, Vancouver Island

With this issue, we introduce Marcie Gauntlett to Jane’s Report readers. Marcie is a cook, a writer, a photographer and a world traveler. She combines the first three of her talents in the pieces she prepares at her French Beach Cooking School on Vancouver Island. She draws on her travels in the U.S. Foreign Service to bring you dishes from around the world. She has searched the countryside in every place she has lived to find what grows wild in those spots and will bring you recipes from nature’s bounty as well.  Recipes.