We're always in the hunt for stories
By Chuck Kajer, Managing Editor
It was about a month ago that New Prague Fire Chief Jim Becker invited me, along with Mayor Craig Sindelar and City Administrator Jerry Bohnsack, to put on gear and go with the department into a burning home with some firefighters. It was one of the more interesting stories I've done in 18 years in this business. It also took a month to get into the newspaper, since it was going up against sesquicentennial events and other events. We needed to find the week when we had enough space for the story to run. That is this week.
Newspaper writers get to meet a lot of interesting people and do a lot of interesting things. Because of my job, I got to go through training on when a cop should or should not shoot in certain situations, I got to climb to the top of the New Prague water tower (the old one, next to the Utilities building), and I've been, at the invitation of former police chief Dennis Rohloff, in the state patrol helicopter as they followed the snowmobile tracks of a couple of armed robbers. That one I remember well because I only had a few shots left on my camera and didn't bring an extra roll of film.
With this job, I get to meet interesting people on a weekly basis. This past week, I interviewed a member of the St. Wenceslaus Parish who led a group of youth workers on a mission trip to Guatemala and a gold medal winner from last week's U.S. Special Olympics Festival. Look for those stories in future editions.
I've had the chance to meet governors, senators, pro golfers and other well-known people.
But it seems the people I meet right here, from our community, often have the most interesting tales to tell.
We're always looking for stories to tell, and we can't do it without input from the community. If you've brought a story to us in the past and we haven't used it, try again. It's possible things didn't work out for us to do that story when you brought it in. We'll do what we can to find time and space for it.
If you have a story to tell, or know someone who does, let us know. We can't make up the stories, we need to get ideas from you, our readers.
The same goes for any event you have planned that deserves news coverage. Don't assume we know about the event. Let us know about it several weeks in advance, so we can make arrangements to cover it. Of course, we cannot be everywhere, so if we aren't able to make it to your even, please understand we can be only so many places.
It's easy to get ahold of us. Stop in or write to us at 200 East Main Street, PO Box 25, New Prague, MN 56071. You can email us at news@newpraguetimes.com, call us at 952-758-4435 or fax us at 952-758-4135.
