Estes Valley Voice is a finalist for two national publishing awards

Story by Patti Brown

The Estes Valley Voice has been selected as a finalist for two 2025 Local Independent Online News Publishers – LION – awards: one for public service and the other for community engagement. The nominations are an honor as we mark our first anniversary this Saturday.

LION is a national publishers association with more than 575 members that helps digital news startups develop sustainable business operations. They received 250 award submissions and will present the awards at the 2025 Independent News Sustainability Summit in St. Louis in September.

A news publication should report the news and serve as a platform for public discourse about the news. Toward that end, we sponsored or served as a media sponsor for several community engagement events during our first year.

In August 2024, we hosted a community screening of the documentary “Stripped for Parts: American Journalism on the Brink.” The award-winning film looks at what is happening to community journalism across the country as newspapers close down or become what is called a ghost publication.

In October right before the November General Election, we hosted another screening of a documentary, “Trusted Sources,” followed by a panel discussion about the role of the media in political news with panelists Vanessa Otero of the Media Bias Project, Estes Park Mayor Gary Hall, Rev. Elizabeth Jameson, and Estes Valley Voice Journalist Elisabeth Sherwin.

We served as media sponsors of the Dementia Together symposium at the Community Center in October 2024. One in ten older Americans 65 years and older has dementia. Dementia is a serious mental health and economic crisis that affects both the patient and their family members.

After winning a Colorado Open Records Act lawsuit, the Estes Valley Voice sponsored a Colorado Sunshine Law symposium for members of local elected boards and interested community members. The seminar, presented by the Colorado Freedom of Information Coalition in February 2025, was attended by more than 50 elected officials.

As the community with the largest percentage – 40% – of individuals 65 and older in Colorado, the Estes Valley Voice is committed to highlighting the needs and concerns of seniors in our news, features, and commentary writing. Toward that end, we co-sponsored an author talk with Ron Pevney on the 10th anniversary edition of his book Conscious Living, Conscious Aging, in February 2025. The talk was held at the Good Samaritan Society – Estes Park Village.

We organized and sponsored a public forum in April 2025 for candidates running for the Estes Valley Fire Protection District and the Estes Valley Recreation and Park District. We also published voter guides that explained the role of special taxing districts in Colorado and collected candidate statements from candidates running for the three special districts that held elections in May.

As a tourist town with many retail businesses that cater to visitors, we hosted “Tariff$ and the Local Economy,” a panel discussion in May to address questions and concerns about tariffs. The event was moderated by Adam Crowe, the Economic Development Manager for Larimer County Economic and Workforce Development, and included Scott Applegate, Bank of Estes Park;  Mark Ell, Alpha Capital Management Group, LLC;  Mauree McCann, owner of The Mad Moose, and Rajiv Poudel, owner of Estes Village and several other area businesses, May 2025.

In the past 12 months, we have published 665 original, boots-on-the-ground news stories. We have 300 paid subscribers, and in the last 28 days, we have had more than 85,000 page views. The clicks on our advertising exceed industry standards tenfold.

Those are good statistics for a startup independent news publication in a community of 12,000 people. They tell us that the community wants local news