Merry Christmas from The Ave Herald

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Published on Monday, 25 December 2017 18:38

To all our readers and advertisers:

We have decided to take a turn in our lives and are ceasing regular updates of The Ave Herald, although the site will remain available for the foreseeable future. A heartfelt thank you to all who have read and supported the Ave Herald for the last nine years.

We launched the news site on All Saints Day, 2008, because we believed there was a need – even in a small community – for an independent source of information in the town, one whose primary interest was the residents, not the developers or the university. (pictured, the Ave Maria Celebration of Lights in 2009)

We are proud to have done that for so long, covering all manner of local events, meetings and local sporting events. Our online news site reached thousands of people each month, including not only local residents but many from places all over the United States and around the world who had an interest in the unique town of Ave Maria. In addition, a column by Ave Herald Editor Patricia Sette, "What's Up in Ave Maria," reached tens of thousands more every two weeks through its publication in the Naples Daily News.

The Ave Herald always strove to provide a fair and accurate reporting of life in Ave Maria. Early on, some criticized us as being shills for the developers and the university. Then we reported facts the developers and university administration didn't like and drew their ire. So we must have been doing something right.

The town of Ave Maria is showing new signs of growth. But both the town and the university have grown in ways that we personally do not find as compelling as the direction that was charted at the time we bought our home in Ave Maria in July, 2007.

The site will remain available for the foreseeable future, with some modifications, because we believe it can serve as a valuable resource on the history of the town by using the search function to look for past stories, which remain available from when the site was launched. We also may publish stories from time to time if there are significant developments affecting the town or the university.

We especially appreciate the support of numerous advertisers, some of whom have had ads on The Ave Herald for most of our history.

As the town of Ave Maria enters what we see as a new phase in its development, we offer our hope and prayers that it will continue to be a faith-filled, family-friendly community.