Orleans Hub reaches 10-year milestone
Photos by Tom Rivers: The steeple of the Lyndonville United Methodist Church is in the foreground during the finale of the Lyndonville fireworks show on July 4, 2022. The fireworks show in Lyndonville is one of the best in Western New York, and even more amazing up close on the Lyndonville athletic fields behind the school.
The Orleans Hub is 10 years old today. We started with the mission of connecting people to community news.
We are grateful for the first decade, and that we’ve become a part of the peoples’ lives here, and those who have moved away and like to check in on their hometown.
Many people like to exclaim on social media – “I made the Hub!” – when they are featured in a photo or article. Thousands of people have now made the Hub in the past 10 years.
We’ve been posting an average of about 10 articles a day since April 1, 2013. This is the 34,707th article since we started.
We are based out of the Lake Country Pennysaver in Albion. We try to cover all corners of the county. We try to cover all sorts of news. Many of the smaller news sites tend to be crime-heavy with lots of police blotter and not much else. We’ve tried to offer a more well-rounded report of the county.
We hope people feel better about our Orleans County, seeing a lot of the good news, and people pushing through challenges. We do report on crime and many of the rough edges.
The Orleans Hub has been operating at a time when many news organizations have endured round after round of staff cuts. Some newspapers – the former Albion Advertiser and The Journal-Register in Medina – have closed in the past decade. The two newspapers in Orleans County were limping along when The Hub started and actually were operating out of Niagara County.
The local news business is a tough business. We thank our advertisers and other supporters for keeping the Hub going.
The Hub is owned by Karen Sawicz, who also is the publisher of the Pennysaver. I appreciate that she took a chance on an on-line news site and has navigated many pitfalls that could have sunk us.
We are fortunate to have long-time sports editor Mike Wertman and sports photographer Cheryl Wertman offering daily sports coverage. Ginny Kropf also has been an asset since she joined the Hub in a part-time role. I’ve been with the Hub since the beginning after working 16 years at The Daily News in Batavia.
Brad London and Bob Stilwell work in advertising and have been creative working with local businesses and organizations on getting their message out.
We look to the future and keeping you connected to the community news.
A massive fire on Oct. 17, 2013 engulfed the sandstone warehouse at Orleans Pallet in Albion. It is one of the largest fires in recent history.
