By Charles Melton
Melton’s Musings
The Tribune’s last editorial of 2025 stated that I was working on a monthly community outreach event, and now the time has come to make the big announcement.
You’re invited to Brews With the News Editor from 5 to 6:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 6 at Sandhills Brewing on Second Avenue in downtown Hutchinson. I will be covering the $100 or so of drinks, so come and enjoy a free beer on me. Sandhills is owned and operated by friend of The Tribune Pippin Williamson, so it’s only proper that the event is held there.
Brews With the News Editor will be on the first Friday of each month unless it falls on a holiday like Independence Day in July. In July, it will be the following week.
The premise for the event is to have conversations with as many of our readers as possible in a relaxed environment without any purpose other than to have conversation. If you like what we’re doing here at The Tribune, I’d love to hear it. If there’s something you don’t like, I’d love to hear that, too. If you have story ideas for our staff to cover, by all means come share them with me and I’ll be sure to pass them along. If you’d like to hear war stories from any one of my numerous stops across the country on my journey that led me to Hutchinson, I’ll be more than happy to share some of those as well.
Over the last four weeks, I’ve made it a point to reach out to community leaders and just talk. I’m new to the area, and I know there’s a lot that I don’t know. I’m also readjusting to being back in the real world outside of the Washington, D.C., bubble and the beaded, daquiri-soaked joviality that is New Orleans. I figured that the best way to gain an understanding of Hutchinson, South Hutchinson, Reno County and the rest of The Tribune’s coverage area was just to take time out of my day and meet with as many people as possible one-on-one.
It would take more than both hands for me to count the number of people I’ve had the pleasure of sitting down with over the last few weeks, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg. I have no doubts that it will take longer than the rest of the year for me to feel like I’ve met with even a quarter of the leaders in our readership area, but that’s one of the most fun parts of this retirement gig of mine. Hutchinson and Reno County are blessed to have leaders who truly care about their communities and want to make them better places to live and work.
In a world where social media, texts, and emails are the preferred means of communication, I’m old school because there’s not much that I enjoy more than having face time (not the iPhone version) with people. It’s something I inherited from my grandfather, Jim Lindsey, whose footsteps I followed when I chose to make newspapers my profession of choice. Papoo, as all his grandkids affectionately called him, was always out shaking hands and making friends or for at least as I can remember. It’s also one of my resolutions for this year, so I’m all in on keeping it.
The community played a large role in giving birth to The Tribune along with Michael Glenn, who has blown my doors off over the last few weeks with not only his writing ability but his ability to see the bigger picture and grasp what the real news is beyond the obvious. The Tribune is part of the community, and my No. 1 goal each week is to do everything I can with the help of the Tribune staff to put out a newspaper that isn’t just journalistically outstanding but is reflective of the community as a whole.
Our open houses from 4 to 8 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 30, and from 1 to 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 31, here at The Tribune office on Main Street in Hutchinson are just the beginning of our community outreach efforts this year. Brews with the News Editor is another piece of it, and who knows there might be more. Keep reading each week to find out.
Charles Melton is the News Editor of The Hutchinson Tribune. He can be reached at charles@hutchtribune.com.