Recently, an employee here at the Port Orchard Independent pointed out that our focus on staff-produced city, education and community news, along with our sports section, dedicated to South Kitsap, had begun to infringe on the “contributed” aspect of this community newspaper.

The employee was talking about the portion of the paper that is dedicated to the announcements and community-written articles that announce the community’s goings on and chronicle the community’s rites of passage such as graduations, golden anniversaries and deaths  –– the announcements and accompanying photographs that readers and community leaders send to us each week.

After listening, we have made the needed adjustments and are now ready to rebuild the community pages of the Independent. Send the photos (400k or better in jpeg form) along with the announcements of meetings, matriculations and yes, even send word about who caught the biggest fish. Potlucks, fundraisers and social clubs can count on a return to community pages along side staff-written news on topics such as the slow efforts by Kitsap County to build the community funded skatepark.

Each week going forward, we will carve out the needed space to tell of your engagements and events on the pages in the printed Independent as well as our electronic editions.

Send the information and photos to us online (editor@portorchardindependent.com) or drop it by the office at 2497 Bethel Road, Suite 102 in Port Orchard.

With community news in mind, we would also love to see some the energy spent in the comments sections, under the stories published in the online Independent, go one just one step further and string 50 more words together and then send an old-fashioned letter to the editor (300 words or less, handwritten or e-mail) that will likely reach more people through our print distribution than online.