I’ve been pondering this piece for a few days, and every time I do, I land at the same question — where do I even begin?
To say this year has been a whirlwind is an understatement. We started 2024 with a gleam in our eyes, coming off our first year of ownership of the Democrat where we enjoyed incredible support and success.
While the support has not wavered, success has been tougher to come by in year two due to a variety of factors. The two largest ones, I think, included the windstorm in May that forced us to close the office for two months for repairs, as well as the economic uncertainty of a presidential election year.
As we head into 2025, the gleam is steadily returning. We are planning some changes this year and further expansion, details of which will come at a later time in this space.
News-wise, there has been no shortage of coverage opportunities. Look no further than the Top 10 news and sports stories and you’ll see what I mean.
The No. 1 and No. 2 news stories could be interchanged. So many people were affected by the nearly $6 million in damages from the May 26 windstorm, and there was hardly a day that went by this summer where there was not some mention of the race for Barry County Sheriff — and the drama surrounding the close result kept the race on people’s minds for weeks after the August primary.
New state-of-the-art facilities — namely the Barry County Sheriff’s Office and jail, as well as the Cassville High School Performing Arts Center — have added an air of modernity to our corner of Missouri.
A new Nativity scene was unveiled, the culmination of multiple community partners working together to keep a Cassville tradition alive. We hope new manufacturing jobs will come to the city soon thanks to the work of Paul Sidio and his renovation of the Justin Boot properties that have sat empty for 4 years.
One of the coolest stories of the year is a result of Roaring River spring research, the high likelihood of a unique species living in the depths.
Sports-wise, we had many reasons to celebrate our prep athletes. Watching Faith James win the state title she’s been chasing was noting short of an inspiration (and resulted in probably the best sports emotion photo I have ever taken), and seeing Southwest repeat its district title in Lamar with some stellar lastditch defense was a joy.
Moments like those come so few and far between they’ll be appreciated long after the year’s end.
Putting our Top 10s together is always a fun way to look back at the good and the bad over the previous 52 issues, and through the process, I always learn a bit about our readership.
One of my techniques for picking top stories is looking at website and social media analytics. According to website analytics, we had more than 366,000 page views in 2024 and more than 174,000 users. For being based in a city of 3,000 and county of 35,000, that’s pretty incredible to me.
So, what were the top three most-read stories on the website? First was the Barry County Aug. 6 Primary Election results, second was the recent story on Christopher Collings’ execution for the murder of Rowan Ford (if you haven’t read this one, Sheila Harris did an incredible job), and third was a crime story where an altercation in October led to a child being shot.
While hard news dominates the website traffic, soft news and features are the most popular on social media. What were the top three posts on Facebook? Believe it or not, first was a Through the Years post in November that reached nearly 60,000 users. Second was our new Thanksgiving feature this year where we asked a dozen kindergartners how they’d cook a turkey, reaching nearly 30,000 users (we’ll definitely be doing this again in the future). The No. 3 post was the only one in the top 10 on the website and social media that crossed over — Sheila’s Collings-Ford story.
As we head into a new year, we’re hoping to continue reporting news, sports and more that you want to see. A good community paper provides a mix of information, education and entertainment, and through our reporting, photos and videos (the latter of which I have put a greater emphasis on this year), we aim to continue being Barry County’s best news source and the best small weekly newspaper in the state of Missouri, according to the Missouri Press Association’s Better Newspaper Contest.
We have our work cut out for us in 2025, and we’re ready to get it started. We wish you all the best in the new year!
Kyle Troutman has served as editor of the Cassville Democrat since 2014 and owner/publisher since 2023. He was named William E. James/Missouri Outstanding Young Journalist for daily newspapers in 2017, and he is a twotime ISWNE Golden Dozen award winner. He may be reached at 417-847-2610 or ktroutman@cassville-democrat. com.
