On the second Friday of June 2026, a newspaper landed in the driveways of homes throughout Moundridge, Kansas.
For some residents, it might have been an unexpected sight.
For others, it was a welcome return to something the community had been missing—a newspaper dedicated to telling the stories of the people who live here.
It was The Plains Pilot.
A community in need of its own newspaper
For years, Moundridge had a weekly newspaper called The Ledger.
Robb and Martha Reeves owned the paper before selling it to Kansas Publishing Ventures in September 2018.
The Ledger and the McPherson News eventually became the McPherson News-Ledger.
In February 2023, CherryRoad Media, owner of The McPherson Sentinel, acquired the News-Ledger and folded it into The Sentinel.
Regional coverage continued, but Moundridge no longer had a publication devoted specifically to its own community.
That left a gap.
City council decisions, school board discussions, local sports, community events, business openings and the everyday stories of neighbors still mattered, but residents did not have a dedicated local newspaper bringing those stories together.
I had seen the value of that kind of coverage firsthand.
I also knew how easy it was for useful information to get lost.
In the inaugural episode of Plains Pilot Radio, which is a podcast that supplements the coverage in the Plains Pilot print edition, I described missing Moundridge’s annual citywide garage sale because I rarely used Facebook and had not seen the notice.
The event was happening, the information was out there, and I still missed it.
Local information only helps people when they can find it.
The Plains Pilot grew from a simple belief that a community deserves reliable ways to learn what is happening around it, understand decisions that affect daily life, and recognize the people and places that make it home.
Putting years of research into practice
Journalism was not a new field for me.
I grew up in Canton, Kansas, and studied journalism at Hutchinson Community College before earning a bachelor’s degree in communication, with an emphasis in print journalism, from Wichita State University.
My first professional job was at The Ledger in Moundridge.
I later tried to buy the paper, but the deal did not work out.
I eventually moved into education, spending 17 years teaching and advising student media at the high school and collegiate levels.
Along the way, I earned a master’s degree in education from Fort Hays State University, a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, and a doctorate in leadership communication from Kansas State University.
My research focuses on community journalism, small-town local news and rural news ecosystems.
The Plains Pilot gave me a way to put that research and teaching into practice.
I wanted to explore whether a small-town newspaper could build a sustainable business while also strengthening civic engagement, social connections and a community’s sense of itself.
It was journalism, but it was also an experiment in how local news might work in a changing media environment.
Two educators, one family focused on community
My wife, Kendall Vogts, became my partner in the project as managing editor and co-owner.
Kendall grew up in Minneapolis, Kansas, a community with a lot in common with Moundridge.
She earned a degree in English and secondary education from Sterling College, taught eighth-grade English in Hutchinson for eight years, earned a master’s degree in instructional coaching, and then spent two years as an instructional coach before joining the Moundridge school district.
Her experience in education and her connection to the community brought a complementary perspective to the newspaper.
She also understood the role a local paper can play in recording ordinary life: the school achievements, family visits, community gatherings and small moments that might seem routine at the time but become meaningful memories later.
Our family became part of the operation, too.
Our children Presley and Kolten earned the title of “distribution technicians” as they helped get the paper out to readers, and our dog Opal Elyse became the “administrative assistant,” though she does little to actually help the operation.
From the onset, we planned to deliver copies to every driveway in Moundridge, with additional copies available at racks in local businesses and other locations throughout southern McPherson County.
A different model for a rural newspaper
From the beginning, the plan was to make the Plains Pilot free to readers.
The monthly print newspaper is the flagship, supported by a website for timely stories and updates, a weekly Friday email newsletter called Plains Pilot Signal, and a biweekly podcast called Plains Pilot Radio.
Each platform has a purpose.
The print edition offers a tangible, shared record of community life.
The website carries timely news and sports updates rather than making readers wait for the next issue.
The newsletter puts useful information directly into inboxes, and the podcast gives residents a chance to tell stories in their own words while highlighting local people, businesses and history.
All of this also provides room to grow and expand the offerings of the Plains Pilot.
Still, keeping all the products of the publication free meant finding a sustainable way to pay for the work.
Advertising and community support through our Plains Pilot Patron program became the primary avenues for covering the costs without placing a paywall between readers and local information.
The goal was not simply to publish a newspaper, but to develop a model that could keep serving the community over time.
Journalism without an agenda, except the community
The Plains Pilot was created to support the community, but that did not mean cheerleading for every decision or every elected official.
Local journalism has a responsibility to report fairly and honestly, ask questions, and help residents understand what their local government and institutions are doing.
That can mean covering good news and community accomplishments, but it can also mean reporting on difficult issues when they matter.
Avoiding a story simply because it might be uncomfortable would not serve readers any better than publishing a story without doing the necessary reporting.
The aim was to connect people, not to manufacture division.
Letters to the editor and public discussion would be part of that effort, and I hoped the newspaper eventually could offer opportunities for local students interested in writing, broadcasting, digital media, yearbook and web design.
The first issue and the work of building something new
The inaugural print issue rolled off the presses and into the hands of residents June 12, 2026.
The first episode of Plains Pilot Radio, “Charting a Course for Community Connection,” hit the airwaves a week earlier, on June 5.
Together, the issue and the podcast introduced both the publication and the ideas behind it.
Launching a small newspaper meant building systems as well as writing stories, organizing advertising, laying out pages, maintaining a website, distributing copies, planning newsletters and producing audio.
Of course, there will always be practical concerns about finances, time and capacity.
With much of the work resting on two people, there is always the possibility of missing a story or making a mistake.
We also have to earn the community’s trust and show that this new publication is useful, and that is work that will never be finished.
Still, the launch was exciting.
Owning a publication had long been a dream of mine, and the Plains Pilot offered a chance to do journalism full time while building something with my family.
I wanted our children to see that hard work and dedication can pay off, and that print still had a place in the world because local stories were worth the effort it took to tell them.
The first draft of history
One of the reasons I believe local newspapers matter is that they become part of a community’s historical record.
A newspaper cannot capture everything that happens in a town.
It is a snapshot, not a complete account.
But it can preserve the names, decisions, events, achievements, arguments and everyday details that might otherwise be difficult to recover years later.
The stories in the Plains Pilot are meant first for the people living here now.
They also may help future residents understand what their community was like, what choices people faced and what mattered to their neighbors.
In that sense, each issue is part of the first draft of local history: imperfect, necessarily incomplete, but valuable because it records life as it unfolds.
Charting the course
The name Plains Pilot reflects both a connection to the region and the spirit of an experiment.
Moundridge and southern McPherson County are part of the plains of Kansas.
I grew up in Canton, where a weekly newspaper called the Canton Pilot was part of the community’s history; my mother worked there for a time as a typist.
The name also suited the idea of testing a model for rural journalism and learning how best to serve a community through print and digital media.
The Plains Pilot’s tagline, which is “Charting a course for community connection,” expresses the purpose behind the work.
The newspaper is not just about delivering information.
It is about helping people see what they share, understand what is happening around them and recognize the stories in their own community.
Every person and every town has stories worth telling.
The job of a local newspaper is to go out and find them, tell them honestly and preserve them for the people who live here now and those who will come after us.
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