Welcome from Jaime

Welcome to my portion of the Celebrate Gettysburg blog! I’ll warn you—I’ve never had the opportunity to blog before, so please be patient—and kind.

I intend to use my blog as a sort of insider’s view of what it takes to put together Celebrate Gettysburg.

But first, here’s a little background on how the magazine started. Publishers (and Adams County natives) Jessica and Troy Dean realized their hometown lacked a lifestyle magazine geared toward residents that highlighted all the great things Adams County had to offer. With their experience—Jessica had previously been art director at a regional publication in Maryland and Troy had extensive web and design expertise—Celebrate Gettysburg was born in 2006.

I joined the magazine as editor in 2006 and helped shape the editorial focus and direction of the publication. (To read more about our backgrounds, and to read the bios of our frequent contributors, visit www.celebrategettysburg.com/contributors.html).

With such a small staff, we wear many hats.

As publisher/art director, Jessica is in charge of designing the entire magazine, figuring out the page count of each issue and deciding the page length and positioning of stories. She also sells advertising space in the magazine and, if an advertiser needs an ad designed and created, Jessica does that as well. She also updates the website as needed. In addition, she interacts with readers, advertisers and freelancers via phone and e-mail. This is just a sampling of her responsibilities.

As publisher/website developer, Troy designed www.celebrategettysburg.com and helps secure advertising.

As editor, I am basically in charge of all the editorial copy in the magazine. I plan stories, hire freelancers, and coordinate the Experience Adams and Upfront sections. Occasionally, I will write a feature or department story. I oversee the columns in the Upfront sections, write the assignments for our freelance writers and photographers, and edit and proofread the copy that arrives. I write the photo captions for each story and the copy for Upfront, Experience Adams, the Contents page and the Editor’s Note for each issue. And, believe me, the pages that would seem to be the easiest to write—the Contents page descriptions, for example—can be the most difficult … it’s harder than you think to condense a 1,500-word story into a few catchy words. But it’s a lot of fun at the same time.

Jessica and I also share certain responsibilities, such as selecting photographs to run with our stories and securing text and photos for the Rarities and Adams County Remembered sections.

This is just a brief overview of our roles at the magazine. I plan on outlining the planning and the production process of a typical issue in future posts.

Remember, you can always contact us at jess@celebrategettysburg.com, troy@celebrategettysburg.com or jaime@celebrategettysburg.com.

Jaime Ridgley, editor