Paper also opening long-awaited office in downtown Live Oak.
The Live Oak Reporter, a new weekly newspaper section published each Thursday, will debut in early April and serve Live Oak and all of Suwannee County with local news.
The newspaper section will be published by the Lake City Reporter and will contain all Live Oak and Suwannee County news, Reporter Publisher Todd Wilson announced.
“Since we started covering Live Oak and Suwannee County news and sports a few years ago, we have constant requests from readers and the business community to bring their own news product to town with timely news and advertising and now we can,” Wilson said. “The business community continually invites us to open an office in Live Oak and we’re doing this, too. We are very excited to expand even more than we already have into Suwannee County and serve our friends, readers and business partners.”
The Live Oak Reporter will publish on Thursdays and be a section delivered inside the normal Reporter newspaper published on that day. All readers of the Reporter in Columbia, Suwannee, Hamilton and Lafayette counties will also receive the Live Oak Reporter as part of their current subscription.
The Live Oak Reporter will cover Live Oak and Suwannee County news in its own section. News, photographs and feature stories will be published in this section in a timely manner, as will the advertisements promoting the business of Live Oak and Suwannee County patrons.
Sports from the Suwannee County schools will still be featured in all issues of the Reporter.
Reporter Editor Jamie Wachter, who formerly was the Editor of the Suwannee Democrat newspaper, will lead the news gathering effort for the new Live Oak Reporter.
“Live Oak and Suwannee County have embraced us as part of their community the past five years and I can’t wait to further develop our long-standing relationships with public officials, business owners and residents,” Wachter said. “Those relationships and the trust the public has in the Reporter to timely report on the news in Live Oak and Suwannee County are so important to us and have made our expansion plans possible.”
Suwannee County business partners of the Reporter now have the absolute best avenue to reach their customers and boost their business through this new publication. Leading the advertising and marketing effort of this new venture will be Reporter Advertising Director Monja Slater, a veteran salesperson with 25 years experience known well in Suwannee County business and civic circles and the former general manager of the Suwannee Democrat.
“I am excited about the expansion we are making to enhance the coverage our staff already provides to Suwannee County,” Slater said. “I have strong ties to Live Oak, from working for over 20 years in the newspaper the industry here, serving in civic organizations, to friends and family. I look forward to continue working with the business owners I have had the pleasure of working with all these years and meeting the new business owners in Live Oak.
“I am committed to providing the customer care they should expect and I look forward to the opportunity to work with them to reach readers with their advertising campaigns.”
The Reporter’s Live Oak office will be inside the Poole Realty building in downtown Live Oak at 127 E. Howard Street across from the Dixie Grill.
The paper will have a drop box at the office for customers to leave information and the office will be staffed with specific office hours announced closer to the April kickoff of the new section.
“We’re all very excited about this expansion into Live Oak and Suwannee County with a physical office and a newspaper product dedicated specifically to news in this area each week,” Wilson said. “We have some of the finest, most professional newspaper people in our region of Florida and they have expert product knowledge. They offer accurate accounts of issues and our sales team can help any business grow its footprint and gain more customers.
“We’ve listened to the Live Oak community and we’re glad to be invited in to serve this vibrant area that continues to grow and thrive.”