2003 Year in Review

2003, TC1 in Review

2003 was a rather wacky year in the nation’s news. From Paris Hilton to Schwarzenagger, JLO and Ben to Freedom Fries this has been an unusual (you might say odd) year.

TheCity1.com has gone through a metamorphous this year. The Web site started out five years ago as a place for young people to speak their minds. With the help of George Clark it developed into the community site that it is today.

Bob Vaughn is committed to having teens always working on the site. Currently we have one college student and one high school student contributing. Along with the employed teens we also have teens that contribute articles to the sports site.

In August, Bob hired the first full-time adult to contribute. It was a huge change for the site. News changed daily instead of weekly or monthly. We have also added more photography.

The second large change for 2003 was the expansion of our sports site. We continue to try to get sports articles, quick sports scores, and sports photos. We are always looking for article and score contributors. Timely stories and scores is our goal but we need help to attain it. We also want to cover all sports, male and female, but again we need reporters.

Another change for 2003 was the addition of Photo Albums. After filling the Whiteside County Fair albums we wanted to add albums for other major events so the Special Events area was added. We have had fun filling it with photos from the Harvest Hammer/Paint the Town/Homecoming weekend and the Christmas Walk. We look forward to doing more albums in 2004.

Our newest addition Let’s Talk is an area for our readers to get involved. Let’s share recipes, and our memories of Morrison. These are areas that were suggested by our readers and others, but other areas of conversation can be added. If our readers contribute to this page, it will be a powerful area of the Web site.

We also launched the first Holiday Happening site to help with times and dates of holiday events, but also to give Morrison retail an inexpensive but attractive place to attract potential customers. A DVD player and local business gift certificates were given out in the Elf Hunt game. Those that played the game said it was a lot of fun.

We have added two columnists to the Café editorial page. Patrice Johannsen, the High School counselor, is contributing her expertise on college prep and guidance. Each month Anne Frame, former High School English teacher, is writing her popular book reviews. The Café page has also added an editorial cartoon that changes hourly.

One of our most popular areas is the What’s Cooking? Page. Area restaurants keep their daily specials menus current. Local lunch goers can just scrutinize the menus to decide which menu appeals to them that day.

If you have enjoyed all the new and changing pages on TheCity1.com, we hope you share the site with friends and family. 2004 will be bring more stories, more content, and more sports coverage.

by Barb Benson, theCity1.com
December 30, 2003