WILLOW CREEK — The Willow Creek Gazette is under local ownership again.
Harold Winslow, a 47-year-old newspaperman from Bangor, has purchased the Gazette from the Bangor Daily News chain for an undisclosed price. The sale returns the paper to independent local ownership for the first time since Arthur Whitcomb sold it to the chain in 1965.
Winslow brings 25 years of newspaper experience, most recently as managing editor of the Bangor Daily News’s weekly division. He is moving his family from Bangor to Willow Creek — a commitment that has impressed local residents.
“I believe a community newspaper should be rooted in the community it serves,” Winslow wrote in his first editorial. “You cannot edit a small-town paper from a desk fifty miles away. The Gazette will reflect the values of this community, not of a corporate boardroom in another city.”
Winslow’s wife, Margaret, will serve as the paper’s business manager. Their 12-year-old daughter, Clara — who would go on to become the Gazette’s longest-serving publisher — has already enrolled at Willow Creek High School.
“There’s a good feeling about this,” said Maeve O’Donnell of the General Store. “Mr. Whitcomb was a fine editor, but the chain never understood what the Gazette meant to this town. Mr. Winslow seems to understand.”
Winslow’s first issue featured a front-page story on the reopening of the Mattawamkeag River Trail planning committee, a profile of Ezra Homan’s 47th consecutive Ice-Out entry, and an editorial calling for the town to take an inventory of its vacant buildings and develop a plan for filling them.
“The mill is gone,” Winslow wrote. “But Willow Creek is not gone. It is a town with a river, a pond, a tradition, and a history worth preserving. The Gazette will be here to tell that story.”