hburgnews.com

This is the first post (hopefully the first of hundreds, possibly thousands) on a site that will help the net-savvy residents of Harrisonburg and Rockingham County stay connected to what’s going on around them. This blog was started because I saw a need in this town—a place where the local newspaper’s blog site hasn’t had a new post in months.

People join local Myspace groups because they want to feel connected to the place where they live/used to live, but those forums are so inactive, it’s hardly worth checking. Local residents (myself included) often skip town for the weekend, because they assume nothing worthwhile is happening around here, and that’s often not the case. I’ve missed out on some good live music and events around town because I was simply uninformed. Charlottesville has several community bloggers who write on a regular basis, as well as news blog cvillenews.com. With hburg, I’m unabashedly copying Waldo Jaquith’s idea (with his blessing) with the intent of molding it to fit the specific needs of the Harrisonburg/Rockingham community.

It’s my hope that enough people in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County will take an interest in informing neighbors online, that this blog site will become more community-run, rather than operated by one guy (me) who really doesn’t have the time to post stories on a daily basis.

If you know something you think the rest of the community should know about, contact hburgnews at hburgnews [at] gmail [dot] com. I’m pushing to get more interested writers and “online community-types” that want to pitch in. If you’d like to write a short restaurant or live music review, an opinion piece on local politics, or if you have your own blog or website that you post at regularly and would like to post a duplicate entry here with a link to your blog, please contact hburgnews.

If all goes well and others show an interest in helping to shape hburgnews, maybe we can start a weekly blog carnival, or who knows, maybe even a Spanish-language sister site at some point. In a few months, I should know whether this thing’s going to sink or swim. In the meantime, please leave a comment and subscribe to the RSS feed. Thanks.

-finnegan