It’s a new year, and it’s a year with changes already.

At the end of 2025, we saw the retirement of the Daily Freeman Journal publisher Terry Christensen, and the retirement of the Daily Freeman-Journal editor, Jane Curtis.

We saw the hiring of our publisher Grant Gibbons.

And then we have me.

Officially, I’m stepping up with a new title as community editor. Unofficially, I’m filling the big shoes left by Jane Curtis. At least in some ways.

I can’t be Jane; I’ve watched her off and on my whole life. We are not the same, yet we have many similar experiences. Jane is my friend and I’ve always looked up to her.

I started writing for the Daily Freeman-Journal as a freelancer in January of 2024, shortly after I had retired from library work. I did this at Jane’s urging, and with her encouragement I launched back into the style of writing I had left behind.

And it’s been fun, or I wouldn’t be sitting here right now.

This is the fourth major career shift for me since I first started working. But essentially it takes me back to the very beginning of my career.

Back in the mid-1970’s, I worked on the Webster City High School newspaper, and I became a co-editor my senior year.

I was hired by Max Maxon after high school as a reporter for the Daily Freeman-Journal and for the Farm News publication. I worked for the paper for over a year and a half while starting college.

My Iowa State University degree is in journalism, but it was my fall-back career path. I started as a music major, then realized the jobs in music were limited.

So my fall-back career shift was to writing, working for the Iowa State Daily both as the news-layout editor and a reporter, but also as the editor of Sketch magazine.

But by the time I graduated, I wasn’t so sure about staying in that field.

This was in the day when Watergate made journalists look like heroes, and Mary Tyler Moore was swinging her hat high in the air in Minneapolis working for a television station. It looked like a great career choice.

Then reality set in, and getting a job was not an easy step in the real world. I shifted away from journalism, opting more for a check to sustain and support me.

At first it was just about the money. Any job, working at Kelly Services, then Manpower, which were temporary agencies, were survival steps. Then I spent nearly six years working in sales, mostly for a national company where I earned many regional and several national sales awards.

But working for a corporation didn’t fit my style well. I started putting my time into community work, not only volunteering, but eventually working for the Chamber of Commerce in Fairhope, Alabama, then returning later to do the same job in Webster City.

After 13 years in Chamber of Commerce work, I made another shift. I began working in the library world. My research experience from the journalism school helped me get a job at the reference desk at Kendall Young Library, and also allowed me to develop a teen program for the library. After a few years of this, and taking care of aging family members, I was hired by the Johnston Public Library to manage their computer operations and assist at the research desk. By the time I moved into the management role at the Bertha Bartlett Public Library in Story City, I felt I knew the library world inside out, and loved to tell people about it.

There was a common thread through all these jobs. They all involved writing. But it was different than a job in journalism. I have spent nearly 40 years taking minutes, writing proposals, business letters and preparing presentations. I’ve written scripts, analyzed reports, written grants, and recorded history for various organizations.

I’ve written regular columns focusing on the job I held, the people I worked with, and the communities I worked in. I designed and wrote newsletters, and set up websites and Facebook pages. I wrote advertising copy and radio scripts. I even helped edit a monthly magazine that was delivered by hand to households.

I’ve tried to explain it’s a different style of writing, and it’s not easy to jump back and forth between styles. It takes some work to step away from that, to understand the difference.

Jane has been teaching me as much as she could about the Daily Freeman Journal over the past few months. I’ve tried to absorb her style, her philosphy.

I wanted to learn, because I wanted to help. I wanted to help because I could see Jane needed help.

I wanted to help because having a local newspaper is important, where great community projects didn’t have good coverage.

I’ve worked where the newspaper did not make local news important, and where there was no real community any more.

I was curious because this was my chosen course of study that I spent thousands of dollars pursuing in college.

I wondered how much had changed and I wondered if I could make it work here, in my own hometown.

The local newspaper was the only way to communicate news in 1857.

In 2026, I feel it is the best way to communicate local news. It’s not just a sound bite, it is the way to learn more in-depth information and question what is happening around us.

I am taking this step because I want others to know what is happening around them and trust what they are reading.

I want to be able to fill Jane’s shoes. They are a few sizes too big, I know. But we have similar goals and expectations of what the Daily Freeman Journal needs to be.

It is a community newspaper.

And we all want to live in a community that survives. I believe the newspaper is part of that survival.

Jane has exited the building.

But I’m still here.

Kolleen Taylor is the community editor for the Daily Freeman-Journal, effective in 2026.