It is with mixed emotions that I write this publisher’s perspective column about my retirement from The Mining Journal. The first thing I want to do is say a huge thank you to all of our subscribers and advertisers that have supported me and The Mining Journal for the past 27 years. If it were not for your support, I would not have been able to be here for nearly three decades and the paper would not be as successful.

When I first moved here 27 years ago, I had taken a transfer from West Bend, Wisconsin, and it took me six months to get my family to move to Marquette. I wasn’t sure that Marquette was going to work out for me, so I dragged my feet a bit in getting the family moved. After just a couple of months it became clear to me that Marquette was going to be home for a while, so I moved forward in bringing my family to Marquette.

Now 27 years later Marquette is home and we plan on continuing to call Marquette home in retirement. We fell in love with this community and are grateful to be able to live in such a beautiful community.

Even though I am retired from The Mining Journal, I am still going to be active with several boards that I serve on and working with the United Way, The Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul. I am also going to look for ways to get more involved in promoting biking in the Marquette area. I believe that we have some of the best biking trails in the Midwest in Marquette and I want to share that information throughout the Midwest.

I am proud of the watchdog role that The Mining Journal has played in this community for the past 27 years. We have kept a close eye on city and county government and have watched out for how the taxpayers’ dollars have been spent.

We also have kept a close eye on the price of gas, written about that and questioned why the price of gas was so high in Marquette compared to the other areas. At one point the gas stations had a boycott of selling our newspapers at their locations because they did not like reading our stories about the price of gas in Marquette. The boycott did cost us some money while it was active, but within a month, most of the stations started selling the newspaper again. We continue to monitor the price of gas in our area and because of that we have stayed more competitive with the other markets like Escanaba, Iron Mountain and Houghton. We believe the 10 cent to 15 cent per gallon decrease in our gas prices has led to millions of dollars in savings per year for consumers in the Marquette area. Marquette is no longer always the highest price of gas in the state of Michigan as reported weekly by AAA.

I am also very proud of the advocacy role that we played in Marquette. I really enjoyed hosting The Mining Journal Cheer Club and providing thousands of gifts to families in need. Through the generosity of our readers we have helped keep Christmas a special time that may not have been so without our help.

We also supported as part of our advocacy role major events in the Marquette area like the U.P. 200, the Ore to Shore Bike Race, the Noquemanon ski race and many other community events. We always want to support anything that will make the central Upper Peninsula a better place to work and play.

The Mining Journal has an excellent staff and I am sure you will continue to see a top-quality newspaper published in the future. The Mining Journal has been in business since 1846 and it has gone through quite a few publishers. I am proud to have been one of the lucky people to have held that position. I also want thank the owners of our newspaper for allowing me to work with them for the past 27 years. I have been in the business for 42 years. This is the fifth newspaper that I worked for and I am extremely appreciative that I was allowed to stay here this long and raise our family here, and now be able to retire here.

EDITOR’S NOTE: Jim Reevs was publisher of The Mining Journal. His final day was Friday.