As the election dust finally settles from 2014 and we enter headlong into a new year, I can’t help but recall that old adage about the more things change, the more they stay the same. The proverb was used initially by the French novelist Alphonse Karr in the late 1890s but certainly is applicable in today’s world. It came to mind several times these last couple of weeks as I was editing stories for the newspaper. Funding for higher education, conflicts among different purveyors in the energy industry, proponents versus opponents of growth in the state, intra-party political squabbles — these are some of the same topics that used to grace our pages when I first began as a reporter at The Colorado Statesman back in 1978, yet they are still fodder for current political discourse.

On the other hand, there are numerous things that have changed dramatically over the course of 36 years. As I sit here contemplating my feelings and watching the words appear on the screen of my computer, I can remember distinctly how we produced this weekly newspaper back then. The manual typewriter that I used to peck out my stories now sits on a side table near my desk. It is still functional, except for the letters ‘o’ and ‘m,’ and is on display mainly for nostalgic reasons. I always get a kick out of it when younger visitors to my office look quixotically at the contraption and wonder what the heck it is.

The old Underwood sits next to the oversized spotted leopard couch that takes up one entire side of my office at 1535 Grant St., kitty corner from the state Capitol. I can’t remember its exact origins, but I do know that my predecessors at the newspaper supposedly inherited the beastly piece of furniture a couple years after the 1976 Bicentennial. And above the couch, where many politicos from both olden days as well as modern times have sat for interviews, there’s a torn and frayed American flag hanging on the wall with 48 stars, another souvenir from my early days at the newspaper. It was reportedly acquired from someone in former Congressman Tim Wirth’s office in the mid-1970s. I can’t recall much more than that, other than to say it has been a part of The Statesman décor ever since.

And finally, there is my collection of political buttons that now spans another entire wall. I started collecting them in the summer of 1980 during a trip to Detroit where I covered my first national political nominating convention. A young page at the GOP gathering that year by the name of Sean Conway introduced me to the button-collecting hobby, and my interest in politics has grown over the years, as has the number of buttons, now almost one thousand and counting. And that kid named Sean? He’s a Weld County Commissioner these days.

There is other political memorabilia scattered around my office, along with framed photographs depicting famous political faces from decades ago. There are two prized photos of Tom Strickland and Robert Redford, each from a different U.S. Senate race where Tom was the Democratic nominee. Our mostly unused Fax machine is stationed in one corner of the outlining office. It used to beep all the time as we were alerted about incoming messages. We used to marvel at the ability of a machine to send correspondence so quickly over a phone line!

And finally, situated in another small storage room off a nearby office is the first computer I used at The Statesman — a Macintosh SE which boasted a screen about six or eight inches wide. The fact that the monitor was black and white never bothered us — we were just elated that we had the latest in computer technology!

Now The Statesman is about to embark on even more change, and I’m very excited about the prospects. The newspaper industry, as you’re well aware, has been undergoing major transformations over the last few years. The advent of the Internet and social media has forced many of us to redefine the way we bring you news. There have been, admittedly, some growing pains along the way. We all saw this here in Denver when the Rocky Mountain News succumbed to the financial realities of a two-newspaper town. We have likewise seen the demise of smaller hometown weekly papers, layoffs in larger dailies and the general realignment of resources in the print media.

Despite all the uncertainty, however, we have come to realize that our niche publication is one we want to preserve and nurture as we proceed into our second century of publishing. And to do that necessitates some change. And in this case, that’s a good thing.

We’ll be bringing in some new faces, most notably in the business area where a manager will help coordinate our advertising sales, subscription fulfillment, website promotion and other revenue producing streams. No matter how successful a newspaper may be on the editorial side, it also needs to function at a high level on the business side. So that’s where some of our renewed focus will be as we continue to grow our business. We don’t want to merely survive in this crazy publishing world, we want to thrive.

For me personally, it means I will get the opportunity to really focus on what I truly love doing at The Statesman — making sure we’re your key source for political news in the state and continuing to provide you with a “must read” publication every week.

I look forward to continuing at the helm of the newspaper, shaping our coverage of Colorado politics, and concentrating on my passion of writing columns, interviewing our state’s movers and shakers, and closely collaborating with our team as we take The Statesman in some exciting editorial directions, which we’ll soon be rolling out. And while we will be undergoing some changes over the next few weeks, what has not changed is our commitment to solid bipartisan reporting and our keen interest in Colorado politics. And we’ll have a lot of fun along the way.

Thank you for your support over the years. And please continue to stay with us as we keep the tradition of The Statesman alive for at least another century.

— Jody@coloradostatesman.com