It’s February 14th, the day of love and chocolates and celebrating the important people in our lives. It’s Valentine’s Day. We wanted to make this edition of the paper centered around the concept of LOVE. Not just love between people and significant others, but the love of the community, the place we all live, and the appreciation for this often-criticized locale called Minot Air Force Base.

Throughout this edition, you will find articles about specific places and people in the area that our staff loves. These places and people are what makes this Minot community specific, unique, and even covetable.
As the Editor of the Northern Sentry, I am accustomed to spreading the word about other’s perspectives and highlighting the interesting people that make up the Minot AFB Adventure. My job is to tell the stories of all you teachers, spouses, workers and everyday fascinating lives. Sharing what makes your personal stories important is my job, and I love it. But today, I will share the stories of those who are connected to the Northern Sentry, not in front of the paper, but behind it.

This story is about the Northern Sentry reporters themselves. Reporters Nataly Zarrella, Kerianne Noelle and journalism intern Hannah Waters have spent the last half year dedicating their time and effort to bring you story after story, deadline after deadline. They have shown up despite family stress, work commitments, personal issues and little pay to bring you these amazing community centered stories each week. Their stories have captured your hearts and brought to light solutions to problems you all deal with. Not to mention, they have dealt with scrutiny from me marking up their work every week, but always going back with a good spirit to make changes and edits.

These ladies are a vital part of what makes this small-town, base-centered newspaper possible and thriving. There is a reason that the Northern Sentry is one of the only Air Force newspapers left in existence today, and these reporters are one of those reasons. Top stories every week have caused our online web presence to soar with readership, and even more people are picking up their paper newspaper off their porches every week. This is what I love. I love sharing your Minot AFB Adventure and having an amazing team of reporters to help do that.
I’d like to highlight my favorite story from each reporter over the last few months:

Kerianne Noelle ~ Bringing the Costco Experience to Minot AFB Community
Nataly Zarrella ~ Supporting Missile Field Airmen This Thanksgiving
Hannah Waters ~ Mother, Military Spouse, Author and Superwoman?

I wish you a Happy Heart Day and please take a look through the newspaper or online and discover some lovely places and people on this love-centered day.