Ten years, 3,650 days or so (if you add in leap years), a total of 520-plus issues, and just as many frantic deadline days.

The South Delta Leader is 10-years-old this month. Our first edition rolled off the presses on July 30, 1999. Produced by a small staff of five—led by then general manager Eileen Campbell—the paper ventured into territory where others had mounted challenges previously against an entrenched competitor—the Delta Optimist—and failed.

Over the years the effort to produce an informative and entertaining publication has been a rewarding journey for the Leader’s staff as they have covered events and news and helped promote businesses and organizations in a community that is never far from expressing its passion for the wonderful place where they live.

Hopefully, the readers have benefitted from the thousands of pages that have been published in the Leader over the years as everything from school closures and sports championships to election campaigns and highway development have been brought to life in print and on our web site (southdeltaleader.com).

A great deal of thanks has to be handed out to everyone who has come into contact with the Leader over the past decade.

If you have ever called us to suggest a story idea, complain about delivery, berate us for an editorial viewpoint, place a display ad or classified, or thank us for featuring you or someone you know, we thank you. Because a community newspaper is nothing without the input and interaction from the people it serves.

You, the reader and advertiser, have been tremendous as the Leader has grown and evolved into the paper it is today. And we look forward to serving you in the future in whatever form community papers adopt in the coming decade.

Here’s to you South Delta, the Leader and other groups and individuals celebrating a significant anniversary this year—some of which you will discover in the pages ahead.

Congratulations on a wonderful relationship that has many more deadlines in the future.