I don’t have two children, but I do have two newspapers and that’s kind of the same thing …
As a child, I always imagined one day I would have three children. I’m not sure why, but the only thing I can link it to is the fact that I was one of three children and growing up, that somehow seemed like the “correct” number to me.
Even at age 18, when I met my now-husband, I was convinced I would have three kids. Don’t get me wrong, he was adamant that he wanted only one child, but I thought, eventually, I could convince him otherwise.
When we got married 18 months later, we had both begun to compromise — maybe two children was our path.
Years later, we had our son, who remains the light of our world. He is almost eight now and is inquisitive, smart and — much to my husband’s pride — getting funnier every day.
From the time he was born, I joked that I couldn’t have another because he was such an easy baby. I mean, he didn’t even cry when he was born, just stared around the room, seemingly wondering what all the commotion was about.
Surely, if we did have another child, it would be the complete opposite in every way.
But, if I’m being honest, there was always a part of me that felt that maybe we weren’t quite done. Maybe having a second child, though different from the first, would be wonderful in its own right — certainly my friends with two kids would say as much.
While I will say that there are days my husband and I are still on the fence, I would argue we are 98% in agreement that we will be a one-child family.
That brings me back to one of my most recent deciding factors, the two newspaper thing.
You see, in 2022, when my partners and I bought Barton Publications, and, therefore, the Hays Free Press and News-Dispatch papers, the latter publication had been in decline, following the COVID-19 pandemic.
When I became publisher, I vowed that I was going to do whatever needed to be done to grow that publication again and bring it back to life.
Thus, I have spent a decent portion of the last three-and-a-half years immersing myself in everything Dripping Springs and Wimberley. From the chambers of commerce to the local neighborhood groups, I have spent my fair share of time raising the level of the coverage in the News-Dispatch and attempting to get the word out about the paper.
And, in that time, it has come a long way. We have increased its circulation, increased its brand awareness and become the official paper of Dripping Springs for the 2024-25 fiscal year. I have relationships with infinitely more people than I did when I started and I can even drive multiple different ways to both Dripping Springs and Wimberley without a GPS.
Then, a couple of months ago, I started to notice something … despite my team focusing the same amount on coverage in Kyle and Buda for the Hays Free Press, it seemed that we had somewhat tipped the scales to having more content for News-Dispatch than Hays Free Press.
It was at this point that my analogy was born — having two newspapers is kind of like having two children.
Hear me out. When you have a child, it is all-consuming. Your life, at least for a while, is intrinsically tied to the life and well-being of that child. As a business owner, it is much the same.
But, as they do, that child begins to grow up and, although slowly at first, begins to depend on you less and less and they learn to stand on their own two feet. For a business owner, they call it working more on your business than working in your business; it begins to form its own identity.
Then, in some cases, you have a second child. While you are busy nurturing that newborn baby, your first child continues to grow and, what I can only imagine feels like overnight, becomes more independent. In my analogy, this is where I started focusing more on News-Dispatch — the “second child” — because the Hays Free Press was going along just fine.
It’s a completely natural phenomenon, putting more focus into the business, or child, that depends on you most. But, what I have come to learn is that just because someone or something doesn’t depend on you so loudly, that doesn’t mean the dependence is gone, simply that it has changed.
Much like a second child, the Hays Free Press didn’t need me in the same way it once did, but that didn’t mean my work there was done, it had just changed.
This week, as I look at our list of content for the week, I see that Hays Free Press has a greater number of stories than News-Dispatch, but I guess that is the juggling game I will continue to play as long as we are lucky enough to call both of these publications ours.
Kontnier is the publisher of the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch. She can be reached at [email protected].