For just over 22 years, the Johnson City News & Neighbor has been in the business of publishing the good news we see going on in Johnson City and Washington County each week. We are locally owned and deeply invested in our region.
Likewise, the good folks at Tri-Cities Sports have spent the last 15 years working tirelessly to provide top-notch sports coverage, shining a spotlight on the accomplishments and triumphs of high school athletes across Northeast Tennessee. Launched by former Kingsport Times-News sports editor Ron Bliss in 2004, Tri-Cities Sports has always been locally owned with deep ties to our region.
With that being said, it is my pleasure to announce that we have entered into a partnership with Tri-Cities Sports that will allow us to share their top-of-the-line sports content with our readers. When the new high school sports season starts later this month, we’ll bring you photos of Johnson City and Washington County athletes in action each week thanks to the talented professional photographers in the Tri-Cities Sports stable.
Our main reason for entering into this partnership is to enhance our sports coverage. When it comes to good news, it’s hard to beat the stories that play out every day on courts and fields around the region as young people learn valuable lessons through healthy competition they will carry with them for the rest of their lives. This arrangement will allow us to feature more Johnson City and Washington County athletes competing in more sports than we’ve been able to cover in the past.
But our reasons for joining forces with Steve Wilmoth and the team at Tri-Cities Sports go deeper than securing quality content. As we observed our 21st anniversary last year, News & Neighbor publisher Bill Derby penned a column that reiterated our strong support for the “Shop Local” movement. In that column, he hammered home the importance of supporting local business and reminded folks that money spent h ere stays here.
For that reason, it is important for locally owned businesses to support each other whenever possible. In my conversations with Steve Wilmoth, vice president of media technology and publishing at Tri-Cities Sports, we recognized that our differences made this partnership feasible. Their primary focus is digital, ours is print. While they cover schools across the region, they are headquartered in Sullivan County, and our coverage area is focused on Washington County. They produce daily content and we operate as a weekly publication.
So when the high school sports season kicks into high gear later this month, we hope you enjoy our new and improved sports section, powered by Tri-Cities Sports. If you see a photo you like, you can check the photo caption for information on how you can order a digital copy of the picture from the photographer who took it.
