I’ve thanked our readers already for making the launch of Whidbey Crosswind so successful. I was presented with information this week which makes me want to say thank you all over again.

You are making the Crosswind a hit. Each week we print just over 7,100 copies. Some of them are mailed directly, but most are put out on racks across Naval Air Station Whidbey Island, Oak Harbor and Coupeville.

Nearly all of these papers are disappearing from the racks because you’re reading them! Our return rate last week was just six percent. In the newspaper business, that’s phenomenal.

Our circulation manager, Lynette Reeff, had this to say:

“We can’t keep (the papers) stocked,” she said. “I’m hoping our publisher, Marcia VanDyke, will up our press runs because we’re out. We have no more for restock.”
“They’re flying out of the boxes,” agreed Diane Smothers, circulation assistant.

According to Diane, we have 10 distribution points on NAS Whidbey. The commissary alone gets 550 copies each week, and they go fast. We have 32 distribution points in Oak Harbor, 14 in Coupeville, and next month we’ll be setting up distribution points throughout Anacortes for our military families there.

Thank you for reading the Crosswind! Thank you for submitting your ideas – I encourage you to keep them coming to me at kreed@whidbeycrosswind.com.

We knew when we started this paper there was room to tell stories of not just our military, but our military spouses, civilian employees, our children and our retirees. I hope you’ll allow us to keep sharing your stories, because we love telling them.

Kathy Reed, editor