Hey there 10’rs, Will Hill here.
It’s rare for our team to speak as ourselves and share a little editorial, but it feels like the right moment for it.
Just short of 30 days ago, on March 15th, I made the leap from employee to owner and purchased County 10.
Since then, we’ve had a lot of questions and heard some pretty funny rumors, but until now we’ve purposely held back on making any public announcements about the new ownership. No secrets on why – we just weren’t ready. The dust needed to settle a little, you know?
Now, most of you don’t know me, but I’ve lived in Fremont County for 13 years. I’m a Flatlander by birth but have found that I prefer Wyoming to just about anywhere. My wife Stephanie and I have been married for almost 11 years and we live in Riverton with our five kids.
County 10 has been my professional home for a little over four years now. Leading sales locally, I’ve connected with some amazing business owners and people from all over the County and helped them think outside-the-box about local marketing. Along the way, I discovered that this Community News Stream thing had become my passion.
I love the County 10 brand of community news, where we just share what’s happening and let the reader decide what’s important. No top stories, no by-lines, just the raw news. Our model has its challenges, for sure, but there’s no denying that County 10 has provided a common thread running through Fremont County that didn’t exist 8 years ago. Over time, I realized that my passion for community storytelling had spilled into new ideas and a sense of ownership for the County 10 brand, but, employees don’t often become owners, right? Then a series of events took place that brought about an opportunity to purchase the News Stream.
I knew I had to jump on the chance…and here we are today.
I certainly can’t take all the credit. I have to thank Jason Kintzler, County 10’s Founder, and Fabian Lobera, who was my boss, for all their support over the last several years and for humoring my crazy statement: “I’d like to buy this thing.”
Rural Wyoming seems to move at a different pace than the rest of the world, but when I pitched my plans to a group of locals, they moved heaven and earth in a ridiculously short period of time to help make the ownership transition happen. There are good people in Fremont County. People willing to take risks in order to make great things happen here.
I also need to thank my core team. Same group, different day. Amanda Gaudern and Jerrad Anderson are the best kind of awesome. They’ve held down the fort while I went off chasing windmills and buying businesses.
I’ve been asked what we’re going to change about the News Stream under new ownership. Short answer? Not much. Our Community News Stream isn’t going anywhere. We’re going to keep sharing the raw news about what’s happening because that’s what connects us here in our little corner of the world. I also can’t wait to do some new things and stretch new boundaries. So, stay tuned 😉
If you’ve got comments or questions, I’d love to hear from you. Give me a shout at [email protected].
Cheers,
Will