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Lori and Terry Kraus are celebrating a year of owning and publishing the Greenhorn Valley View. I had wanted to interview them for the newspaper for months but this seemed to be the appropriate time to do so and they agreed to come over to Quail Court on a sunny afternoon and talk to me. We sat outside on the deck, perched high in the treetops, and they told me about themselves and what publishing a local newspaper meant to them.

Lori talked about her life before Colorado City:

“I was born in Grand Junction and grew up out on the plains to the east. I went to school in Gunnison and Boulder and then got a bit lost for awhile. I lived in Oregon, Kansas and Nebraska, met Terry and we went to live in Oregon for eleven years before Terry got promoted in his job and we moved back to Colorado. I felt like I came home again. I loved Oregon and we all enjoyed the ocean and hiking and camping there, but eventually the flat plains and the big skies were where I wanted to be."

Terry joined in:

“I loved Oregon too but when I saw the trees there for the first time, it almost felt claustrophobic. It was very pretty but it felt like we were living underwater most of the time and what I like about Colorado is the great openness of the country.”

Lori:

“I worked in the counseling field for ten or eleven years, both with in and out patient facilities.”

Terry grew up in western Kansas and worked in a bank as he finished college. He had a friend with a fast food business whom he worked for, then worked with a couple of large companies and traveled around quite a bit, working in Kansas, Colorado, South Dakota and Wyoming. He started his own restaurant back in Kansas but it failed and then took a job in Norton, Kansas, working with a daily newspaper as their advertising manager.

“I had no experience whatsoever with advertising but got the job because I had been a good athlete and the owner said that he had always done well with self-disciplined athletic people. I worked there for few years, moved onto sports writing for the paper and about then realised that I had a drinking problem. I went through treatment and have been sober for twenty one years now. I came back to the treatment facility a year later, saw this beautiful brunette at an AA meeting and figured out that she was a counselor there. So I actually started the training as a counselor myself and that was how Lori and I met.”

As two strict teetotalers, Terry and I discussed the pros and cons of alcohol, how it was a confidence drug, how drinkers became lively, then noisy before getting maudlin and finally strangely silent. We both are likely to leave the party a bit early and to miss the latter stage. And Terry acknowledged that he had an addictive personality and had now transferred this trait to his work.

“I can do everything to excess. I am a workaholic and have had to- with Lori’s help- really learn to take a vacation. Left to myself, all I do is work all day. Even when I’m watching a game on the TV, I can keep working on my laptop. There’s not a day that I don’t work and even take my laptop with me on vacation. I tend to wake very early and do as much work as possible before the family gets up.”

Lori works at the newspaper four days a week and is a dedicated mother to her two children, Amber and Keegan, eight days a week.

“My life has always been defined by my children; I always put my children first, sometimes even before my husband, I’m afraid, but I have been in love with my kids since the moment I say them. They are grown up now, Amber is about to be married and they will both be out of the house. My challenge now is going to be how to truly be an individual again when they go. I was very independent until I was thirty, got married at thirty, but when I had kids, I changed who I was to some extent. I am going to have to learn what I like to do most again."

Interjects Terry:

“Lori works all the time too. When she isn’t at the newspaper, she works at home, with QuickBooks, with project on the house and yard.”

Lori:

“I don’t think that either of us is very good at relaxing, at being in the moment, we’re always planning and staying busy. We work all the time. But when all the preparation, and celebration, of Amber’s wedding is over and Keegan goes back to school, I really want to find time for us again.”

The Kraus’ came to live in the Greenhorn Valley five years ago. Terry was working for Labor Ready, a free job search service for finding and posting jobs in all industries, in the Oregon area, and they both decided that as their parents were getting older, that they should move closer to them. He applied for a job as District Manager in this area and got it. The children adapted well to their new rural home and the family settled in.

Lori went on:

“A year ago I was beginning to look for what to do next. Amber was living in Denver and Keegan was about to leave for college. On August 1, 2009, we took over the newspaper. It felt exactly like what we should be doing here- the timing was perfect and the opportunity seemed divine. I knew that I could write and edit, but I’m learning constantly. We make mistakes, but keep striving for perfection in the job. I want to put out a professional newspaper, with good advertisements, good writing and no errors. Why start running a newspaper and not-say- a health club? It was purely down to the timing- the opportunity to buy it just fell into our laps and we felt it would fit for both of us! We didn’t really have extra money but the Hoods made it easy for us.”

Terry picked up the story.

“I always liked to write, saw an ad for writers in the newspaper and started to do pieces for it. I mostly worked long distance, could do interviews over the telephone and it gave me something to do on lonely nights in motels while I was out on the road. The Hoods were strong Christians, as we are, wanted to sell the paper, and felt that we were the right people to take it over. We managed to get a small business loan, made a good deal with the Hoods and that was it. They stuck around for a few weeks to get us started and then took off, leaving us to suddenly run a newspaper. I had some experience in advertising, could do layout and had done some writing but the scary part was actually running the newspaper as a business. Lori had no experience with running a business or the program we use for layout, and we have really learned a lot this past year. There is just so much to learn- the advertising, editing, writing and the business side. Some parts of the job have gotten really smooth, others are still a bit rough. Consistency in the writing is still an issue and something we have to continually work on. We still make an occasional bad mistake and that’s frustrating.”

“My goal," declares Lori, “is to get the writing and the editing perfect this year. Terry writes and does some editing while my role, I hope, is more and more to do the lay-out, to deal with the overall artistic look of the paper and to put ads together. I focused first on learning Quickbooks for billing, and Quark for the layout and that is functioning well now. We have more ads than before and the circulation has stayed steady-which is success in this economy. We hope to make the paper something people find enteresting, look forward to, and can count on for news and information. We are taking a little money out of the paper now which is good, considering how little time we’ve had it. And don’t forget Kim- she is invaluable to the running of this paper.” Terry added that they continue to work with the Hoods ro improve the appearance and functionality of their website.

To my mind, Lori and Terry Kraus define this community, both with their newspaper and in their beliefs and lives. The newspaper covers every aspect and every attitude in the community and thus, defines what this community is all about. It features local news, reports school activities, meetings of every committee, covers the opening of every new business, publishes letters on every topic imaginable, has a regular church column, covers all local sport events, prints recipes and social activities as well as my own fringe art and music musings. It is both an organ allowing the community to have its say and an ear which picks up everything going on. Read the Greenhorn Valley View and you have your finger on much of what this Colorado City/Rye area is all about. And Terry and Lori are very much what this community is all about too; they work hard, raise their children impeccably, have strong religious beliefs and exhibit an astonishing tolerance and understanding at all times. The recent Art and Music Festival would not have been so successful without their unfailing support and the community would not be what it is without their faithful reportage and their open-mindedness. The bottom line is that although the Kraus’ and I come from vastly different worlds and viewpoints, we all really like each other and work well together- and that says it all. Join with them to celebrate a successful year of journalism and watch them take the paper onwards into the next decade.

The Greenhorn Valley View invites you to stop by August 11, from noon - 3:00 p.m. for an openhouse to thank the community for their support and contribution during this first year of operation.

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