News Release

Valley Log celebrates 25 years 

The Valley Log, a weekly newspaper with offices in Orbisonia and Mount Union, Pennsylvania, celebrates 25 years with the printing of its first issue of February, 2005.

Founded in 1980 by C. Arnold McClure, the weekly newspaper serves Huntingdon County and parts of Mifflin, Fulton, Juniata and Franklin Counties. It prints 3700 papers weekly and is mailed and sold on news stands.

The main office has always been in Orbisonia and the newspaper has always served the people of "the valleys that surround the Aughwick Creek and the Juniata River". It has always focused on history.

"Although the newspaper was started with a shortage of start-up capital and experience, enthusiasm and perseverance made up for the other shortcomings," notes Publisher McClure.

"As a Penn State trained history teacher who could not find a job teaching school upon my return from Vietnam and the Army in 1969, I founded this newspaper in 1980 with one salient goal in mind: to record the thoughts and the actions of the people who lived in the valleys that surround the Aughwick Creek and the Juniata River during the last two decades of the 20th Century. Now we find ourselves five years into the 21st Century and we are still writing history. We have never been 'politically correct' and we have gone 'to the edge' many times with our stories. We did so to keep true to our goal of accurately recording the thoughts and actions of the people who lives in our part of the Appalachian Mountains. As America has become more homogenized culturally, I realized that our people in these mountains often kept the old way of speaking and doing things. I wanted to record those ways. I never wanted The Valley Log to be like any other newspaper," says Publisher Arnold McClure.

"In our early days, it seemed our Compugraphic typesetter and developer were always breaking down, so when Apple introduced the Macintosh system with laser printer, we were the very first to commit to it. In fact, I called the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and asked if anyone in Pennsylvania was using the technology yet and were there any problems I didn't know about. The director told me that Joe Sukle of the Middletown Press & Journal was talking about using it and that I should call him. I called Joe and told him I had used the Mac system to make some ads, but had not used it for text yet. He told me he had tried one page or part of a page and it had been fine, so the next week, I published the entire issue of The Valley Log using the Mac system. We were the first, as I could find out back then, in Pennsylvania to publish a complete issue of a newspaper using the 'new' Macintosh PC system." Interestingly, Joe Sukle is now the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association.

The Valley Log continues to reflect, record and report the rural lifestyle of the people who live in the valleys that surround the Aughwick Creek and the Juniata River.

In the face of declining readership with many newspapers around the country, The Valley Log continues to gain readership with circulation increasing over 200 in the last calendar year.