Well, well, well… As you would have read in the last issue, Lisa Boonstoppel-Pot has said a fond farewell, and decided to retire from editing the Rural Voice. I get to be the lucky one to take her place! I am so thrilled to be part of a small but mighty team here at North Huron Publishing and I’m looking forward to shepherding this magazine into the future. 

If you’re a regular reader of this magazine, you’ll know I’ve been around for a while. I grew up on a small farm near Moorefield, where my family still farms (now a big one). I believe my first time writing for the Rural Voice was an opinion piece that I wrote back in 2012 or so, when I worked for a stint at Maitland Valley Conservation Authority. From there, Keith Roulston gave me a first assignment covering a meeting about agriculture software at the Listowel Ag Hall, and I was hooked. When Lisa took over from Keith as the editor 10 years ago, she got me in a regular rotation of opinion columns for the Viewpoints section and I was able to do some freelance stories for her as well. 

So, I’ve loved the Rural Voice for a long time. For me, it was always a special treat to get to do from the side of my desk. I also work as a freelance project and non-profit organization manager, with a focus on agriculture, manure management, drainage, soil health and water quality, and you’ll see that reflected in many of the articles I wrote for this magazine over the years. But I also loved doing the local-restaurants-with-global-food series, trying new flavours and hearing incredible stories of how far-away people came to be small business owners in rural Ontario. 

Writing for the Rural Voice has allowed me to travel around our readership area, meet new people, listen to their stories and share them with a broad audience. You know the saying that what you’re looking for, you’ll find? By keeping an eye out for story ideas, you flex a curiosity muscle in your mind to the point that pretty much every person, place or issue can become interesting. Everyone has a life story full of joys and struggles; it is what connects us all.

I’m so grateful for all the people that I’ve met through my writing, and I never know where a story will take me. It feels like following runners in a patch of strawberries. An incredible phone call with Amy Stein earlier this year led me to an inspiring tour of her farm, and down a deep rabbit hole about farmland access and land trusts in the area. From that, a story on Ontario Farmland Trust introduced me to a new kindred-spirit-type friend working with The Philosopher’s Wool Co. and she suggested another land trust to write about in the future, which I’m aiming to work on in the next months … and who knows where that will go next!

In the same way, I got to meet the incredible volunteers at both the Kincardine and Palmerston hospitals  this month, and a suggestion that the Quilt Crusader be a good story idea, led me to a lovely chat over coffee with Karen Poce. She invited her friend Penny Crawford to join us, and Penny in turn introduced me to her sister, Debbie Smith. We had a great call which ended with my signing up for her sewing class. Thanks to these incredible people that shared their time and stories with me, I see both hospitals and quilts with a whole new appreciation. 

As well, I feel connected to the Rural Voice readership when I get feedback from strangers, or near strangers: the man behind the counter at the hardware store makes a comment on last month’s article, a neighbour says that he forwarded one of my columns about conflict resolution to his family, or a total stranger writes in to check up on my mental health after my February column. 

And then there are the friendships that writing has brought me. During the height of the pandemic, I wrote an article about a one-room schoolhouse that used to be between Harriston and Clifford for the Wellington History Journal. Over the phone, and for a few Saturday mornings in a row, I interviewed a 75-year-old man that had attended that school before it closed. I was calling him in his hospital room, and we kept to our regular calls even after the story went to press. Once the pandemic was over and he had moved to a long-term care facility in Kitchener, I was able to meet him in real life and I still visit him there when I go into town. 

Writing the Viewpoints column felt like writing a letter to 11,000 strangers, never sure who might read it. So, it was an absolute delight when a Rural Voice reader near Woodstock wrote me back a lovely handwritten note last year. We wrote back and forth a bit and I got to meet him on his farm over the summer. He is shy and quiet, a deep thinker and such a wonderful soul, that I wish he would write for the Rural Voice one day. (Hint, hint. And I know you’re reading this!)

So, I love this magazine because it has given me a voice and a huge community, but I also feel it serves a much bigger purpose for all of us. 

While the world (and the media) seems to be getting more polarized, we have a free space to explore all the sides of rural and agricultural issues. How lucky are we that we have an independent and community-owned magazine that, thanks to our incredible advertisers and partners, comes to most of us for free! What shall we do with this incredible resource? I’m curious what you’d like to read within these pages, what issues need to be explored and what voices would you like to hear more of? As well, if print media is shifting, what sorts of social media should the Rural Voice pursue?

Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Rural Voice! As I’m planning the upcoming issues for 2025, I’d love to hear from you all how we might celebrate. Are there memorable stories from the past you’d like to mention? Have you, like me, made some meaningful connections through the Rural Voice that you’d like to share? 

You’ll notice that we have a call-out for local love stories that I would cover for our February issue, and we’ll print “personals” columns for free in our Valentine’s Day spread. Deadline for that is January 13, but as for suggestions for the next 50 years of the Rural Voice, I’m all ears.  Please get in touch with me at mel@northhuron.on.ca. ◊