As you may have noticed on this week’s masthead, this is the first edition of the 40th volume of The Orléans Star. That’s right, it’s our 40th birthday. And when I say “our”, I mean our as in all of us, including all of our advertisers and all of you – our loyal readers because without you, this paper wouldn’t exist.

It all started 40 years ago in April 1986, when the paper’s founder, Larry Soulliere, decided that launching an English-language newspaper in rapidly growing English language market represented an excellent business opportunity.

The population of Orléans was rapidly expanding in the mid-80s, and with it came new home builders who wanted to advertise their latest model homes in Chapel Hill, Blackburn Hamlet and Fallingbrook. And so, on April 14, 1986, The Star was born.

I didn’t come into the picture until October 1989, when a chance meeting with an old friend at a downtown bar turned into an opportunity to write a guest column for the paper. That first column was a tongue-in-cheek treatise on why Hallowe’en should be banned. It generated eight letters to the editor which was more letters to the editor than the paper had received since it’s inception.

Gord Brewerton, who was the publisher at the time, was so impressed, he told my friend James MacArthur, who was the editor, to offer me a regular spot. That was 36 and a half years ago.

Over the years, I have been a columnist and senior writer from 1989 to 1997, editor from 1997 to 1999, managing editor from 1999 to 2001, and eventually the owner.

During that time, I have had the privilege and the honour to write about the people and events that make Orléans such a wonderful community.

In those early years the paper was simply called The Star. It had a circulation of more than 30,000 homes and had a distribution area that covered Beacon Hill, Pineview, Blackburn Hamlet and Orléans, minus Chapel Hill South, Avalon and most of Fallingbrook, which didn’t exist back then.

As homes started sprouting up in South Fallingbrook and Avalon, the paper started shifting its distribution from Beacon Hill eastward and new home builders continued to provide pages upon pages of advertising.

News coverage mostly centered around municipal politics and school board issues and the odd crime report. There was lots of minor sports coverage and feature stories about interesting people in the community.

The paper managed to survive the dawn of the World Wide Web and the Internet in the late 90s and early 2000s, the tech bust and ensuing recession in 2008, failing advertising revenue in 2016 which very nearly resulted in its demise until it was purchased by myself and turned into a biweekly, and even the COVID pandemic.

Shortly after acquiring the paper in 2016, we launched the L’Orléanais in January 2017, the Orléans Star’s French-language sister paper which has allowed us to provide coverage of the community in both official languages.

Through it all, the paper has stayed true to its purpose – to provide unbiased news coverage of the community it serves; to inform, educate and, at times, entertain its readers; and to bind the community and its residents together by telling the stories of ordinary people with incredible stories.

But that doesn’t mean we don’t make mistakes. Typos and misspellings are still an all too common occurrence despite our best efforts to proofread the paper before it goes to print. And we publish stories about flood waters receding way too prematurely, although those stories happen far less often than the typos. Thank goodness.

But we do try. And for the most part the Orléans Star remains as relevant today as it did 40 years ago. Sure it has it’s challenges, especially when it comes to advertising revenue, but there’s enough businesses who believe in the Orléans Star as an advertising vehicle to keep the paper financial viable.

In that same vein, we will soon be launch-ing an initiative that will allow readers to support the paper financially in return for a number of benefits called “Friends of the Orléans Star”.

In the coming weeks we will also be publishing a 40th anniversary book that will contain the local, national and international milestones for each of the past 40 years.
As we celebrate this milestone, we look forward to continuing to serve our readers for years to come?

(If you wish to comment on this or any other View Point column please write to Fred Sherwin at fsherwin@orleansstar.ca)