Our speaker last Wednesday was Rotary member and past president Tammy Prout. Tammy is the owner of the Hill Country Community Journal, a local newspaper she started in 2005.

 

 

Tammy grew up in San Antonio, and moved to Kerrville in her early twenties. She didn't know exactly what she was going to do here, but was offered a temporary job at the Kerrville Daily Times selling ads. After that, she went to work for the Mountain Sun newspaper, and learned all facets of the newspaper business, including being a reporter and photographer, developing her own photos and doing ads and graphic layout.

 

In 2004, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and went through chemotherapy, losing her hair and compromising her strength. Shortly afterward, the Mountain Sun was bought out, and Tammy decided to start a community newspaper, focusing on reporting on local news, events and sports.

 

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of that adventure, and with a circulation of about 3,000 customers, the Community Journal is still going strong.  Challenges include retaining staff, the economy, recovering from COVID when advertising revenue dried up, and social media competition. She battled breast cancer again in 2022, but still manages to remain strong and strives to report local news and events with honesty and integrity.