Newspaper or advertising circular?

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor,

     Once again, expecting to find out about what is happening in Jones County or, for that matter, even around Monticello, never expect it to be considered newsworthy unless of course someone buys advertising!

     My God, for a town that wants to attract people, they sure go out of their way to ignore any effort that happens to do just that!

     Since it wasn’t reported anywhere in the county, last weekend there was a free barn tour that included the Penitentiary barns in Anamosa, as well as other barns around the county. There has never been any sort of barn tour in this county in the past, so when I received a call from Huston, Texas, over a year ago asking if I would help the Iowa Barn Foundation find some barns for a tour in Jones County, I agreed to do just that. We ran into COVID and had to postpone the tour until this spring, and we were fortunate to find a few choice barns and owners willing to show off their barns.

     This is what tourism is when you don’t have Disneyland in your backyard!

     Just a couple of miles from Monticello is a tiny barn that has some remarkably interesting history. I was there for two days interpreting the building and why it is important. I would estimate we had over 400 people from as far away as Hawaii come out to see this building! We had people from throughout the state and from Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin, Missouri, Nebraska, and Kansas. Now, that means people are in the area and they are buying goods and gasoline; they are seeing your towns and stopping to shop if there is something that interests them. In one case, I had someone combining the tour with buying horse tack from Theisen’s.

     Two weeks before the tour, I dropped off the Iowa Barn Foundation’s magazine that highlighted the barns included in the tour to both the Express and the Journal. I know at least one of the papers contacted the president, Jack Smith, from Dubuque County, to attempt to sell advertising! The Foundation makes no money from these free tours. Those who donate to the Foundation get a magazine before each tour and the money they donate beyond the expense of the magazine is used for grants to help owners repair and restore their barns.

     So, was there a story? Was there even a follow-up? Did anyone even notice something was happening that might make a good human-interest story? Well, if you haven’t seen one, that is the answer.

Steve Hanken

Monticello, Iowa

Editor’s Note:

The Express does wish to apologize to Mr. Hanken for not following up on this item. We feel it would have been newsworthy, but due to a miscommunication between staff we dropped the ball.

We do not consider covering an event based on if it is or is not advertised. In this instance, we were not the local paper that attempted to sell an ad for this event.

Category:

Subscriber Login