It was 45 years ago when I first went to work for a weekly newspaper called the Stewart Citizen, which served the suburbs that surround the City of Newburgh. It was my first newspaper job and to me, it was grass roots journalism at its best.

I covered everything from the Newburgh Town Board meetings to Little League. I shot photo polls at Gardnertown School and was at Stewart Airport when the nation welcomed 64 former hostages, who received a hero’s welcome after 444 days of captivity in Iran. It was an experience that would teach any young reporter what service community newspaper is supposed to provide.

That sense of purpose wasn’t lost in 1982, when the corporation that published the Stewart Citizen and its award-winning sister, the Citizen Herald of Walden, pulled the rug out from under us. It wasn’t lost a year later, when the Wallkill Valley Times was established to fill a void in the Town of Montgomery.

At that time we committed ourselves to providing our community with a quality newspaper that would focus on every aspect of community life: government, schools, community activities, sports and the arts. By 1989, the support we received enabled us to grow from the shoestring operation of 1983, to an award-winning newspaper. It has also enabled us to take that next step: a Town of Newburgh newspaper to replace the Stewart Citizen.

That was the intention in the Spring of 1989 when the Mid Hudson Times was launched, initially as the Town of Newburgh edition of the Wallkill Valley Times. In a very short time, it would evolve into a full-fledged community newspaper, serving the City of Newburgh and the Town of New Windsor as well. We have much to celebrate: 35 years of journalistic excellence and recognition from our peers for general excellence, editorial writing, photography and graphic design. The years have been good to us.

We all know there are many challenges that confront newspapers and our industry in the 21st century. They include a decline in display advertising and an entire generation that relies almost exclusively on smart phones for information. More than 2,000 community newspapers have ceased to publish since the start of this millennium, and there are no guarantees that we will not join them within the next 35 years.

We have sought to adapt. In addition to three print publications - the Southern Ulster Times came along in 2003 - we have expanded our digital footprint to serve an area stretching from Highland to the north, Middletown to the west and the river to the east. There is still much work to be done. It is work that can only be done by working journalists, with the support of the community they serve.

To you our readers, many of whom have been with us for a very long time, we thank you for bringing us into your homes each week. We thank you for your feedback and some constructive criticism. We would not be here without you.