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You're receiving this because someone thought you'd want to know.
That was always Larry's instinct too.
For years, Larry Walsh sent his News & Views newsletter to a quiet but devoted list of readers - people who loved Confluence, the Turkeyfoot Valley, and the particular kind of community that grows up where rivers meet. He wrote about chicken barbecues and road closures and bandstand bunting and the volunteers who showed up without being asked. He named names. He thanked people. He made sure the small things were recorded, because he understood that the small things are actually the big things.
Larry passed away earlier this year. He left behind a community that misses him deeply, and a newsletter that was never just a newsletter.
I've been sitting with something since we lost him, and I want to say it plainly: we will truly never know everything Larry did for this community. The newsletter was the visible part. But there was so much more happening quietly, off to the side, away from any audience. I used to call him a rascal - and I meant it with the deepest affection - because Larry had this habit of showing up where he was needed without announcing himself, doing good without leaving a receipt, making things better without ever taking credit. Covertly generous. Covertly kind. Sometimes overtly, too, when he couldn't help himself. He was a genuine mensch in the oldest and truest sense of that word, and the full accounting of what he gave this valley will never be written - because he made sure of it.
We've been thinking about what it means to carry something like that forward. I want to be honest with you: I don't think anyone can. We're not Larry. I'll never be Larry. But I believe what he believed - that this valley deserves to be covered, that its people deserve to be seen, and that local news, real independent community-first local news, matters more right now than it ever has.
So we're trying.
News & Views is relaunching as a full community news site at newsandviews.info. Kris Mamula, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who knew Larry and shared his desk at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, is leading the editorial team. I'm Jeffrey "Pope" Pankey - I run Pope's Brand Media here in Confluence, and you may have met me at Tissue Farm… that other thing I do. Together, we are small, we are humble, and we are deeply aware of whose shoes we are standing near. Not in. Never in. But near.
We'll cover events and elections, openings and closings, the trail and the river and the school and the fire hall. We'll tell you when the tunnel opens and when the market starts and when a neighbor does something worth celebrating. We'll try to get it right, and when we don't, we'll fix it.
This newsletter is free. It always will be. If you want to share it with someone who loves this place, please do. If you have a story tip, a community announcement, or just something you think people should know - reach out. That's what Larry would have wanted.
He showed us how. The rest is up to us.
Jeffrey "Pope" Pankey, Publisher News & Views - Confluence, PA
Kris Mamula, Managing Editor News & Views - Confluence, PA |
