End of the Year Reflections

End of the Year Reflections

We at The Nome Nugget newspaper end this year 2016 on a sad note. In the early morning hours of November 17, during a properly raging snowstorm, Nancy McGuire left this world. Ever since then we feel the gaping hole every week as we work on another issue of the Nome Nugget.
We still receive notes, emails and Facebook messages from far-away acquaintances who take the time to express how special Nancy and her reign as the undisputed newspaper queen in our region and beyond was.
Just recently the Nugget staff gathered for a celebration on December 15, a day that would have been Nancy McGuire’s 73rd birthday. We shared stories of our remarkable editor and publisher and toasted to her 34-year accomplishment of running an independent, family-owned newspaper. On her deathbed Nancy instructed Nugget staff to remain vigilant in holding elected officials accountable and to continue the role of the newspaper as a vital pillar of a democracy by exposing the truth and reporting on it.
We intend to do so.
This region is fortunate to have had in Nancy McGuire a champion of the free press, owning the ink at the Nome Nugget for this long while most mainstream press outlets are marching to the tune of corporate media or private interests pushing their own Arctic agenda. The Nugget is not only Nome’s but the region’s own paper, written, photographed and produced right here at the edge of the Bering Sea. Think about it: your hometown paper is the only newspaper Made in the American Arctic. We have the credibility to report on things Arctic because we see them with our own eyes, we feel them with our own senses and we suffer them or delight in them through our own experiences.
This is Nancy’s legacy. We ought to be thankful for her steadfastness to keep the Nugget local, independent and real.
Happy Holidays to all our readers and may you all have a healthy and prosperous New Year 2017. —D.H.—