This past Thursday I had the chance to participate in a rare event for someone who works in the newspaper industry. It was an event of our own planning, and one that will hopefully have a long-standing impact on our company and Suffolk.

With more than 100 in attendance at the launch party held at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts, we kicked off our newest publication, Suffolk Living, a quarterly, full color, slick lifestyle magazine.

As I said in my welcome to everyone in attendance, the mission of this magazine is to “feature the people, places and things that make Suffolk such a wonderful place to live.”

As a career-long newspaper man, developing, launching and coordinating a magazine is a completely different experience, but one with which I am all too familiar.

In Alabama, Nikki (my wife, and Suffolk News-Herald’s Director of Special Projects) and I had the wonderful opportunity to launch a similar magazine at our last newspaper and are unbelievably excited about the opportunity here.

Over the past few months, we have put together what we believe is a strong plan for Suffolk Living, complete with over 200 locations around Suffolk where area residents can freely pick up a copy.

During that time, we have met with civic and community leaders, asking their advice and their thoughts on this project. And with each meeting we have left feeling better and better about the project and with at least a dozen great ideas.

For more than 130 years, the Suffolk News-Herald has worked with a singular focus of serving the residents of Suffolk and providing the best possible coverage of the events that guide our lives.

With Suffolk Living, it is our hope to further advance that mission and help grow the tradition that 130 years has built.

Each issue will solely focus on Suffolk — every area of Suffolk — and work each time to be a fantastic show piece of a city that I believe is one of the most beautiful and welcoming of any community where I have lived.

Over the coming days and weeks, we will continue to give details about the magazine as we near the first edition set to publish on Dec. 1.

We will publish a complete list of all of our distribution points and debut a Web site that will partner with the magazine. And, we will also have a regular e-mail that will be sent out to our daily news customers, showcasing some of the stories and features of each issue.

As with the newspaper, we ask for your help in shaping what the magazine will become. We look forward to your story ideas and other suggestions.

This is an exciting time for Suffolk as the city continues to grow every day. And, as Suffolk’s leading news and information source, it is our job to grow right along with it.

This is Suffolk’s newspaper and soon Suffolk will have its own magazine.