A McKean County newspaper column is rising like a phoenix from the ashes. The “Bird Column" relaunching in the Kane Republican is not necessarily about birds, but about lighthearted news highlighting the local community.
Matt Boyer, a reporter for the newspaper, said the original Bird Column was long before his time. “A Little Birdie Told Me” started off in the 1930s and died off in the 1980s.
“That just changed with people leaving the newspaper and new people coming in, just not wanting to continue the tradition there of just some of the more lighthearted and fun aspects of the paper," Boyer said. "They were just trying to get news in and news out.”
Boyer said the paper lost a lot of its coverage around that time as the town’s railroad industry declined and people left.
But, the Kane Republican is now looking to expand its coverage throughout more of the county. Boyer and the rest of the newsroom saw that expansion as a good opportunity to bring back the Bird.
Besides highlighting more communities, Boyer hopes to bring levity to the news, which can often focus on negative topics.
“I think that in a world where there is so much darkness and where everybody, especially in today's world, is looking at the glass half empty, we need that little bit of spark," Boyer said. "We need somebody to really show us that there is good in the world, that there is something that we can sit down at the end of the day and smile about.”
The Bird Column started again this week. The first column back is about how the community came together to support Boyer after his uncle recently died. He said people would come up to him in the store to share condolences or to share food.
“So I think that's wonderful to really see in a community like Kane where it's not that big, but, you know everybody and everybody knows you, so they really want to be a part of each other's lives," Boyer said.
Boyer said he’s open to story ideas in McKean County. If he doesn’t have a story for the week, he plans to run columns from the archive.
