Hello

Dear Readers,

When the idea of introducing ourselves and saying “hello” to the readers was first floated, our immediate thought was, “how the heck do you tell people that you’re replacing the founder of something?!” The simple answer, of course, is that there is no replacing Kevin. Not now, not ever.

Kevin Boyle started this endeavor in 2014 and, for over eight years, poured his heart and soul into making it, in our humble opinion, the best newspaper in Rockaway.

Luckily, our goal is not replacement. Why would we ever want to replace such a cornerstone of the community? Rather, our goal is to continue the mission of The Rockaway Times. Our goal is to expand on the incredible work that Kevin and the entire Rockaway Times team has done for the past eight years.

It is our intention to continue to entertain and inform the people of Rockaway, on a weekly basis – First and Free!

Our new group consists of life-long locals. We know Rockaway. We know it is a special place and we know that it’s the people that make it so. The playwright, Arthur Miller, said “a good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself.” Well, we hope to be a community talking to itself. We hope to be the place where folks feel they can come and express their thoughts and ideas. Whether they be about how to improve local business, how to keep the boardwalk a safe place, how to clean up some under-tended-to area, or whatever it may be, we hope that this is where you come to do it.

To The Rockaway Times’ beloved advertisers, we are nothing without you. We hope that you will support this paper moving forward, just as you have done in the past, as we strive to accomplish what we have laid out here before you.

And in the same vein, we hope that our readers will continue to support our advertisers as vigorously as they have done in the past. As always folks, don’t be afraid to mention that you saw their ad in The Rockaway Times! (See, nothing has changed!)

Before we wrap up this exercise in verbosity, we would like to take a minute to say a few words to Kevin Boyle. On behalf of the entire community, thank you. Rockaway is a better place today, in part, because of the work you’ve done. We know it’s time for you to move on to bigger and better things and, while we are excited to see what’s next, we are definitely sad to see you go. Of course, this is not “goodbye,” this is “see ya ‘round.” You know the door is always open… and if it’s not, you still have a key.

So, to make a long story short, we would just like to say, “hello!”

 – The Publishers
Sean McVeigh
Jeanne & Jay Ferriola
Pat & Tom McVeigh