SANATOGA PA – Because this is the age of all things digital, we might be inclined to mark today as the start of “The Sanatoga Post, version 5.0.” We won’t, primarily because it’s too pretentious. We do, however, want to welcome our readers to Year Five.

Managing Editor Joe Zlomek

The Post on Saturday (Aug. 25, 2012) observed the fourth anniversary of its launch in 2008. Its first article, titled “Hello From Sanatoga PA,” announced a simple premise: an intent to convince one and all that the village was “a terrific place to live.” That, too, now strikes us as pretentious, but the embodied sentiment is worth repeating. We consider ourselves lucky to be part of this community.

The Post has since evolved and morphed and grown from one publication to six. The initial  article is now accompanied by 4,918 others (as of Saturday) in the Sanatoga edition alone, and additionally by about as many across the other five units of The Post Publications network. It has won national recognition, and a couple of awards.

It has an average readership of about 8,000 people. We cherish and thank every one of you. We thank our many advertisers, too. Their support continues to not only make The Post free to the public, but viable.

We have not done this alone, of course. The Post benefits from many contributors – for news, for photos, for tips, for specialty columns – whose offerings are invaluable. You’ll see the latest at the top of every page, beginning today: it’s our new masthead, hand-crafted by long-time Lower Pottsgrove Township resident Abigail “Abby” Moore Bowne. Like so many other items our readers provide, it was a gift from out of the blue.

Year Five will, in some respects, be much like Year Four. We’re still tweaking The Post: learning reader preferences, mastering new technologies, trying daily to produce the best and most timely local news product possible.

And, yes, new “stuff” is on the way as well. Several new contributors are already lined up to make their debut on our pages in coming weeks. There are new features in the works, and a new set of website enhancements from our several software coding partners.

We’re excited about what the next 12 months will bring. We hope you will be too. Thanks, again, for sticking with us.