Student of the Month: Theodore Roosevelt High School Student of the month was Taryn Thomas, a senior. Dennis Love, THRS Principal introduced her.

 

 

 

David Myers, Program Chair, introduced today’s speaker, Ben Wolford, publisher and editor of the local news source, The Portager. Ben is a 2007 graduate of Waterloo High School and a 2011 graduate of Kent State University’s School of Journalism. The idea for The Portager began with a story he worked on as a freelancer about places that are “newsdeserts,” a growing problem as technology upends the traditional newspaper business. After interviewing Roger DiPaolo, former Record Courier editor, he became convinced that providing local news was a viable business opportunity because so many local organizations had no outlet for passing along information to the public. When Covid-19 hit about a year ago, the need for local news became critical. He launched The Portager in March of 2020 with about 200 email subscribers. Today there are 4500 subscribers, about 25 percent of whom have paid subscriptions.

 

The Portager supports a full time reporter, Michael Indriolo, and a couple of part-timers and interns. But Ben works for free at this point. He sees the time when he will also be able to draw a salary from his business and has several ideas about how to expand. He’s currently working on a journalistic project around local sports.

 

Ben pointed out that strong local news has been proven to reduce polarity of opinion in a community, reduce taxes, and encourage better civic participation, including voting. The Portager is published three times a week and is available free, but subscriptions at $180 yearly or $17 monthly are encouraged. Log in to Theportager.com to sign up.

 

Ben’s wife works for the UN and they are currently living in Brasilia, the capital of Brazil. He presented through Zoom from his home in Brazil, where he edits The Portager. Ben looks forward to moving back to Portage County soon.

 

Roger Sidoti offered the response with praise for Ben and his innovative contribution to our community.

 

After the meeting adjourned, Jim Myers, who had wifi trouble, was final able to present this week’s 100 year anniversary history feature. You can check it out in this week’s bulletin.

 

Respectfully submitted,

Thomas Hatch

Once again the club sponsored An Institute on International Understanding with speakers knowledgeable on international problems as the speakers. The subjects covered were, “World Economic Cooperation”, “The New Day of Inter-American Friendship”, “American Neutrality”, and “Problems of New States in Central Europe”.

 

Finally in the summer of 1939, The Rotary International Convention, was held in Cleveland and an On-to-Cleveland Committee was appointed which resulted in a large attendance of Kent Rotarians!

 

Another moment in our history.

 

Jim Myers