It Started As An Idea
The Northern Sentry does not have a lot of staff, well four to be exact. Ted Bolton owns the Northern Sentry, I am in Marketing & Sales, Erin Beene is our on base reporter and Nikki Greening is our Creative Director/Graphics. Each week we are tasked with producing a 28 page, or larger, paper.

Being a weekly paper is a challenge when it comes to the timing of articles, and events. The Northern Sentry is about 90% delivered by Noon on Fridays. Now back time a bit and our absolute deadline to have all materials to the printer is on Wednesdays at Noon. Having spent part of my career as a broadcast journalist, we worked toward providing news three times a day, noon, six and ten PM. Of course, that has certainly changed as you will have a hard time turning on your television and not finding a locally generated newscast, albeit they are more regional than local in nature. Erin and I do most of the local stories for the Northern Sentry. The content of these stories is generated mostly on Minot Air Force Base. But the base is a 24/7 news source and doesn’t stop generating news at Noon on Wednesday. And that’s why we decided there was a need for another edition, and so the Weekly Post Brief was born.

Can’t Stop The Press
Delaying the Northern Sentry was not the answer, and neither was generating another 28 page edition. The answer was to combine the internet, email addresses, and our talented (well Erin is talented) reporting staff to produce the Weekly Post Brief, an email that covers those stories that did not make The Northern Sentry. The editor of the Weekly Post Brief is Erin Beene, (see, I told you she was talented). The Weekly Post Brief also highlights some of the stories that were in the Northern Sentry, as well as an Event Of The Week. Erin wraps it all up into a neatly produced email that hits your email box around Noon on Friday.

Sign Up On Our Web Site
If you want to sign up for our Weekly Post Brief, just go to our website; northernsentry.com, and follow the instructions. We would certainly like to share our “newest kid on the block” publication with you. Best of all, the Weekly Post Brief is absolutely free, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
No, the Northern Sentry is not going away, actually our locally produced Northern Sentry is better than ever, with local columnists and articles that not only share the news of Minot Air Force Base, but news that affects the residents of the base and the many surrounding communities.

Best Kept Secret
Nothing on your calendar for February 25th? Why not come to Downtown Minot for the annual Coffee and Cocoa crawl. A $10.00 ticket will allow you to tour the many participating merchants. Each will supply you with a small sample of a featured drink. Details are on the downtownminot.com website. See you there…

Snow Event?
I am not totally sure that I will buy into a change in weather that brings snow to North Dakota as a Snow Event. The Weather Channel has started to post weather information and for some reason they think we need to label this information as an event. “There is snow coming…a snowstorm…or even get ready for some winter weather.” Just give us the facts. Honestly, I was watching the Weather Channel and they said that we may experience a Wind Event. How does that differ from a windy day?

Today’s Chuckle
The trouble with patience is, the more you have of it, the more people want to try it.