My parents were curious about community events and civic discussions. A way to keep up was reading the paper. I am one year older than the paper! I don’t remember a time without it in my life. ... The Ballantines were generous with coverage of youth school activities and 4-H. It was always a pleasant surprise to see a picture of me with my sheep, Fritzi, featured at the County Fair. ... Reading the obituary column is important to me, especially since I was born and raised in Durango. It helps me to remember to express condolences and gratitude. I appreciate having a local paper.
Reading The Durango Herald has been a daily ritual since I was a kid! The best local resource for news, thought-provoking editorial columns and the place to find out about all local events. Congrats on 70 years, keep going!
Happy 70th anniversary for the Ballantines and The Durango Herald. Morley and Arthur Ballantine Jr. moved to Durango when it could hardly be found on the map. After buying The Durango Herald they reshaped the town by fostering grassroots community building and tackling difficult but important issues. ... The Herald became a multi-award-winning newspaper dedicated to the family’s principles of a free press. The Ballantines are truly the first family of Four Corners journalism. ... Now 70 years later, the Ballantines understand the struggle to maintain local, independent journalism in a digital age. They are committed to small-town newspapers and their staff who cover diverse local communities and national environmental and political issues. I am honored to be one of their regular columnists.
The Durango Herald is a crucial and iconic institution in our community. The Ballantines have created an incredible legacy of community service through their stewardship of the Herald and their generous support of local organizations and nonprofits.
The Ballantine family, over generations, has demonstrated an outstanding commitment to community and place while pursuing their passion for locally based journalism that people will read and consider, if not agree with. In rural Colorado, where people know their neighbors by sight, publishing a newspaper takes guts – we’re not shy in expressing our opinions, including to those who dare to print the paper with content deeper than notice of births, deaths, marriages and meetings. Love ’em or hate ’em, or sometimes both of those sentiments with the same edition of the paper, Southwest Colorado’s history and present would be much thinner without the Ballantine family’s patiently persistent and generous presence in this region and state.
I was blessed to be able to move to Durango in 1980. Over the years since, I have been further blessed to have met many fascinating residents who have consistently tried to make Durango better. While I am not always in agreement with the methods proposed, I consider the members of the Ballantine family to be seriously focused on making our community a better place for everyone to live. Even though I was the CEO of a bank that directly competed with First National Bank of Durango, the outreach of that bank’s board – which included Morley Ballantine and later Richard Ballantine – was instrumental in my life here in Southwest Colorado. La Plata County has been fortunate to have all members of the Ballantine family as serious players with Fort Lewis College, Music in the Mountains, the FLC Concert Hall and the Center of Southwest Studies among many others. Thanks for the memories.
The Herald’s masthead – There are three things that no one can do to the entire satisfaction of anyone else: make love, poke the fire, and run a newspaper – could have been shortened to six words by Dr. Duane Smith’s book title, “Condemned by Many, Read by All.” Growing up here in the 1960s, everyone got their news, sports reports, comics and puzzles from The Durango Herald. The paper won prizes (and still does) for in-depth reporting and iconic photography. The papers’ ink was our vital link. The papers’ ink was, and still is, literally free ink for each and every good cause. Try to think of a community betterment idea that didn’t get its spark, a nudge, and often continuing support from the Ballantines.
