Mar 3, 2017 By Steve Barrett 6 min read

…You know, I truly believe that this newspaper you have in your hands has a lot of great things going for it, week in and week out. No matter what issue you pick up, you are guaranteed to find a full slate of Greene County news stories and features, interesting columns and opinion pieces, police reports, detailed information about upcoming events, classifieds, comprehensive obituaries, and so much more.

And I know many of our readers find this publication to be just what they’re looking for when it comes to our coverage of Greene County, because they are none too shy to tell us how pleased they are.

(EDITOR’S NOTE: That may sound like I’m bragging, but it isn’t, because we do receive a lot of positive comments about what our weekly paper offers … and the most complimentary comment we hear is that it seems we offer more Greene County news than the other local media outlets. And that is something we are proud of.)

However, I must admit that even though I am proud of what our newspaper has to offer each week for our readers, I am always wondering if maybe we should be thinking about making changes to what is printed on our pages, and if there are other things that maybe we should be offering.

So, dear readers, I ask you: Do you have any ideas for new or different content that maybe we should be providing? What, in your opinion, would be a good addition to our pages? Would you like a movie review column? What about a religion column, or a restaurant review or advice column? Should we be putting in auction results, or deed transfers? Should there be editorial space reserved for a certain topic that would interest you, such as outdoors, or hunting, or more spotlights on certain individuals, businesses or agencies? Would you like to see church service listings, or something else that you think would be of interest to a wide array of people?

Now, please keep in mind that any and all new additions would have to focus solely on Greene County. We will not print any coverage of national news because, quite frankly, we have repeatedly asked our readers about that over the years, and the answer has always been a resounding “No.” And, also please keep in mind that we have a very limited news staff so it would be next to impossible to cover every supervisors/council/school board/agency meeting on a regular basis.

So, readers, the floor is yours. We want to hear from you. Please let us know what new or different items you would like to see grace our pages, and we will carefully look at each and every idea and see what we can do to make our readers even happier with our product.

Feel free to contact us with your ideas by phone at 724-852-2251, by email at steve@greenecountymessenger.com, or by visiting us at our office at 82 West High Street in downtown Waynesburg.

We can’t wait to hear from you…

…So, is everyone ready for spring? Heaven knows I am.

March is finally here, and as we count down the days until the first official day of spring, I can’t help but feel good about what lies ahead. Soon the days will be getting longer, the weather will be warmer, and I will finally be able to kick Old Man Winter to the curb and get ready to enjoy some pleasant weather with a “spring” in my step.

I am happy to report that we are just 17 days away from the first day of spring. And this time of year also means that we are getting ever so closer to Daylight Saving Time, when we set the clocks ahead one hour. (This will happen on Sunday, March 12.) Yes, we lose an hour of sleep, but the good news is that we will enjoy daylight a little while longer each day.

(The extra hour of daylight will once again undoubtedly cause a great debate between me and a few of my friends, in which we argue over whether or not we gained or lost an hour of sleep. No matter how many years go by, we always waste an hour over this silly argument.)

I look forward to this time of year, because the Daylight Saving Time weekend means that we are another step closer to the official start of spring. The only bad news? It’s also the time of year that my wife gets serious about the annual dreaded ritual known as “Spring Cleaning.” Oh joy, a full week of vacuuming, dusting, washing floors and windows, moving furniture, putting away the winter clothes and sorting through the summer stuff, and throwing away endless amounts of clutter collected during the winter months. Something tells me that by the time we are finished I will be longing for a cold front to return, so I could go back to hibernating…

…Oh, and speaking of Daylight Saving Time: This is the traditional time of year that I remind readers of some information that was passed on to me a few years back by the county’s emergency management services department: Daylight Saving Time is the perfect time to change the battery in your smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, and to maybe think about getting more than one smoke detector installed in your home.

I have also had emergency management personnel tell me in the past that when fire departments respond to emergency calls they typically find that many houses do not have detectors installed. Officials also wanted us to remind everyone that houses that have more than one floor should have a working detector on each floor, and all smoke detectors should be thoroughly checked to make sure they are working properly.

This is all good advice that we hope our readers will take to heart …