IMPORTANT: COURIER CHANGES COMING

Beginning next week, The Courier will move from a Thursday to a Wednesday print publication, with the online edition going live every Tuesday. To accommodate that change, the deadline for news and advertising copy moves from Monday at noon to Friday at noon, beginning this week.

Local city and rural residents will receive their physical copy of The Courier every Wednesday starting with the July 2 issue, with out-of-town subscribers receiving theirs Thursday or later, depending on delivery by the postal service.

Office hours will also change, with the Main Street building open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

All of this coincides with the closure of the Area Wide Connection, the final issue of which was printed this week. Because of a decline in advertising and an increase in expenses — primarily postage — the free-distribution publication of Second Century Publishing, Inc. that reached just under 5,000 households in Hutchinson, Turner and McCook counties was no longer financially viable.

Two advertisers that relied on the Area Wide Connection to promote their weekly sales — Freeman Shopping Center and Jamboree Foods — will be using The Courier starting next week. Their advertisements will also be available online at freemansd.com.

The change from a Thursday to Wednesday publication is being made to accommodate the dates of the grocery stores’ sales, which run from every Wednesday through the following Tuesday.