Yellow Pages
During the past 125 years, Skagit Publishing in Mount Vernon has grown to become one of the most significant economic drivers in Skagit County and an important contributor to charitable giving.
With 130 employees, Skagit Publishing is on the list of the county’s top 25 private employers, said Don Wick, executive director of the Economic Development Association of Skagit County.
“That’s a lot of employees no matter where you’re at,” Wick said. “The number of employees is significant in how the (money) weaves its way through the local economy.”
Not much is known about the employees who worked at the Skagit Valley Herald more than a century ago. Detailed records either weren’t kept or were lost as the newspaper grew, changed hands and relocated through the years.
In 1981, the Skagit Valley Herald employed 76 full-time employees and 20 part-time employees, according to an American Newspaper Publishers Association survey at the time.
Since then, the newspaper’s operations have grown by leaps and bounds, keeping pace with the company’s contributions to the community.
For almost 60 years, the company has coordinated the Skagit Valley Herald Christmas Fund, a program to hand out gifts to hundreds of needy families each Christmas season.
Wick said the newspaper takes a leadership role and is an example for the community to follow.
“The Herald’s Christmas Fund is one of the most significant public charitable events in our community every year,” Wick said. “Organizations like the Skagit Valley Herald that take positions on giving are really important for the rest of our community to step up and be civically engaged, whether giving money or turning attention to civic causes. It’s so important to who we are as a community.”
The fund raised more than $68,000 for needy families in 2008 — more than previous years — and scores of volunteers descended on the Skagit County Fairgrounds to help distribute toys and books.
In the past two years, the company also has donated thousands of dollars in advertising space to community and public organizations, said Publisher Stedem Wood.
In 2007, the company donated $54,172 in advertising to organizations that included Skagit Valley College, the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival, and the chamber of commerce organizations for several Skagit County cities and towns. In 2008, the amount grew to $77,351.
“We serve this region, and it includes a lot of great communities,” Wood said.
Company President Leighton Wood said the quality of the newspaper’s business and community relationships has improved since the Wood family bought the Skagit Valley Herald in 1964.
“The people that had been here weren’t very aggressive in anything they did,” Leighton Wood said. “Advertising, news, anything.”
As news and advertising relationships grew, so did connections with the community.
“We were all working together to be an asset to the community,” Wood said. “Our readers are the people that are most important.”
* This report is part of a special section celebrating 125 years of news coverage by the Skagit Valley Herald. To see others, click on the headlines below:
Newspapers have become a multiplatform business
Family’s newspaper lineage dates back to E.W. Scripps in 1878
Longtime carrier learned about dependability
Back in time, A look at some notable businesses of yesteryear
Company ‘lifer’ never planned to stay long
Readers share opinions of the newspaper, positive and otherwise
Newspapers provide link to past, present and future for local woman
