There’s a little magic hidden within your newspaper today.

It’s our Bridal Planning Guide for 2024, a hyper-local supplement that aims to help soon-to-be brides and bridal couples find everything from the perfect venue to the perfect wedding cake, but it also serves to entertain and inform all our reading public as well, with features that we hope will enlighten you to new things in our midst, catch you up with men and women who’ve served as our featured couples in the past and introduce you to our newest bridal pair.

We also took the look and feel of the magazine up a notch this year, providing readers something in which we hope they can take pride in as they enjoy — a magazine that gives you that uptown feel, like one you’d find on the shelves of a bookstore. The touch is different, as is the look — all to show you, our readers and advertisers, that we are always trying to improve the products we share with you.

Special thanks goes to our lovely bridal couple, Aubrey Tsao and Chamara Fernando, who took a beautiful Saturday to sit down for an interview, sharing some of those most intimate thoughts about each other with us and, thus, our readers. Theirs is a wonderful story we had we did justice to in this magazine. Thanks also goes to the folks at Twisted Vine for allowing us to visit their wonderful venue and get a birds-eye view of what a special place they have built right in the heart of Sampson, a place that isn’t just a bridal venue but one that can be used for other meetings and parties. We urge you to check it out. And appreciation is also extended to the half dozen or more other folks who contributed comment on a variety of subjects that helped to make this magazine a buffet of information for brides and others looking to plan a party, a wedding or just a meeting.

The magazine is meant to be a little something extra for subscribers to enjoy, but also something you can pick up while waiting for a doctor’s appointment, a tire rotation or an oil change. The Bridal magazine will be available across the county, in our offices and online.

Read and enjoy.

It is our hope that you’ve noticed the plethora of other niche products we provide to you, too — ones that highlight and honor our agriculture roots (Home Grown), ones that give due promotion to our students and teachers (Excellence in Education) ones that highlight our county’s longest supported and always growing sports program (Pigskin) and one that pays homage to our newest special event (A Night to Shine) And that just touches on a few.

Coming up in a few weeks will be a mini-magazine honoring Rowan Baptist Church’s 275th anniversary. Promoting one of the county’s oldest churches (Founded before freedom as the congregation likes to say), this magazine allows its congregation to share with one another and our readers some of the memories and deep love they have for the church which has stood in our midst for decades. And later, for the first time, we will be publishing a special magazine paying tribute to our veterans, a keepsake we are certain everyone will want to read and rest on their coffee table for months if not longer.

Being able to provide these magazines, in large part, is due to the advertising support we receive for each endeavor. Those who purchase ads in these niche products support them because of their reach and, quite frankly, because they, like us, promote literacy, all things local and a pride in community that we hope shines through with every page turn.

Please always remember to thank our advertisers for their support of these special products, and by thank them, we mean let them know you’ve seen their ad but also frequent their stores, supporting them by purchasing some of what they offer, doing as we also urge — supporting those who support our schools, our community and your local newspaper.

Our over 100-year-0ld local newspaper is a means for us to provide you the news that goes on in our community. We attempt to be the voice for the voiceless and the eyes and ears of a public often too busy to be at every government meeting that goes on. We also try very hard to be the place where we promote our youngsters, get the word out about benefits that do so much good for those having a difficult time and tell the stories of every day heroes that are our friends and neighbors.

Our magazines are the compliment to that — still local and still meant to inform.

These are our gift to you … we hope you enjoy them.