Perspective: A thank you before the goodbye

BY JASON WERT, on behalf of the Branson Tri-Lakes News Team

In early 1998, the veteran Minneapolis band Semisonic released an album called Feeling Strangely Fine. No, that title didn’t fit the day the six of us on the editorial team of the Branson Tri-Lakes News had on Thursday, June 16, when we were notified by text message the newspaper was being shuttered, and we were dismissed without so much as a thank you by leadership of the newspaper’s parent company.

So why bring up that Semisonic album? It’s because that album produced the band’s only number one hit, “Closing Time.” The song came to my mind as I was processing the events of BTLN’s closing time because of the line “every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

We were the final flame keepers at the end of something which began over 110 years ago. A beginning which has led to over 57,855,600 minutes of generations of reporters keeping watch over the area to keep citizens informed of the things important to their lives and to the community. 

A beginning which in some cases led to announcements of someone’s birth and their obituary. A beginning with shared stories of state champions who decades later were cheering in the stands as their child won the same title they had held in their hands. A beginning which kept you informed about the people who wanted to be elected your leaders. A beginning which shared stories of family gatherings, student triumphs, church rallies, bake sales, food bank openings, resorts opening and then closing to become lakeside business developments. New school buildings, new music theatres, new roller coasters and Ferris wheels, new police stations and fire stations, and as far as we could figure out, at least a dozen new sequined suits each year for Jamie Haage and Mike Patrick at Grand Country Music Hall. 

A beginning which chronicled the rise of a community whose entertainment scene became world renown even if the total of the year-round residents of the city couldn’t fill half of the lower bowl at Arrowhead Stadium. A town with an entertainment scene which became so important people who earned the title of “legend” in the country music field like Roy Clark and Mel Tillis and Glen Campbell and Mickey Gilley called it home. 

Now, we are looking to see what new beginning is being born as we process the other beginning’s end.

This is certainly not the end as we would have written it. At the time all of this came down we were working to get you question and answer stories with the candidates coming up in contested races on the primary ballot, stories about new businesses, the nominees for the 2026 Branson Terry Awards and the latest antics of the Branson Board of Aldermen. It wasn’t even on our radar that one of us would have to write a column about the snuffing out of a light which began so long ago. 

It has been an honor and privilege for the six of us on the editorial team to serve you over the last few years. 

For AJ and I, we fought the good fight for mostly five years together. She started with the paper a few months before I did and without getting too maudlin about it, we fought a lot of battles together which never made it to print but have bonded us as more than colleagues. Being completely honest, all the weeks of our putting in 70 to 80 hours making sure the newspapers were ready on time feels like a pyrrhic victory in light of how things ended, but I know we wouldn’t have done anything differently because we cared so much about our communities and our neighbors. AJ Fahr, whose family has lived in this area for over 200 years, is a prime example of someone who gave so much more than people will ever know for a community she loves with a fierce intensity. She will be a tremendous asset wherever she ends up.

Jo Powell, Sarah Powell, Shelby Bruno and Logan Blevins, our current team, have been some of the hardest working and most dedicated staff members who have hung in through a tumultuous time to make sure the news made it to you without bias. They have honorably held the standards of previous members of our news team like now-Hollister alderman Chris Carlson or Sara Karnes or Tim Church or Cliff Sain or any number of names which sat on a byline with a story. The list is long, the list is distinguished, and it’s a list which will end with six names who were here when the original beginning ended on July 16, 2026.

Thank you for allowing us to tell your stories. Thank you for allowing us to be part of your family’s lives and history. Thank you for allowing us to be the ones holding elected officials accountable and running the stories you needed to know about them, especially when they weren’t happy about it. Thank you for allowing us to be there in your moments of overwhelming joy and bitter sorrow; your moments of absurdity and clarity; your moments of trial and justice. We will never forget you.

So on behalf of and with permission from all to speak for the last editorial team at the Branson Tri-Lakes News: AJ Fahr, Jo Powell, Sarah Powell, Shelby Bruno, and Logan Blevins, allow me, Jason Wert, to personally say it’s been an honor and to leave you with the signoff of the man who is my personal journalistic hero and guiding light in my career, Edward R. Murrow. Good night, and good luck.