The Business Times, in case you were wondering.

Yup, just when you think writing on politics and government has given all it has to give, the local hubbub over the two new Mesa County Library Board members gave me some darned good low-hanging fruitcake to mash up, but I’m not gonna re-gift the insanity of the “outraged” protesters who think only those who think like them should be in charge of everything in life to my readers.

Instead, I’m going to talk about me and my own insanity of 2025 when it comes to your favorite newspaper.

After all, it was just over a year ago when I had to make the most serious business decision I’ve ever had to make. A decision about the future of The Business Times, and whether there was a future to be had. And making a decision which ultimately required an in-depth look at one’s own shortcomings isn’t a great, or easy, one to make.

Because that’s what the retirement of Phil Castle did to me. I had to take a long, hard look at my career in journalism. And the first conclusion, although known deep down, was easy to identify, and that’s the fact that I’m not a journalist. I’m a business owner who happens to own a newspaper with the title of publisher.

There were so many aspects of putting together a newspaper I knew about but lacked the talent to do. To summarize, I can’t really write stories (although I may do one now and again, I certainly can’t write a dozen quality stories on a deadline), nor did I want writing to be a focus of my job. I have zero talent to design anything. Well, I can conceptualize ads; just don’t ask me to jump into Adobe to design it. Same goes for laying out a newspaper. As far as newspapers go, I put those two as the top priorities. After all, if the stories aren’t quality and the paper doesn’t look good, no one’s going to want to read it.

So my deep dive into Craigy had me thinking all I was bringing to the table was some running-a-business knowledge, cleaning the office and doing delivery. Well, I’m also a darned-good salesman, and if it wasn’t for that, I’d have been out of a job at my own company years ago. And if I didn’t find some folks to replace two important tasks Phil had done for me and The Business Times, I’d be out of a job in the coming year.

So, with Phil’s retirement date looming and quickly realizing I wasn’t the guy for those jobs, I did the only thing I possessed the talent to do at the time. I put it all in God’s hands. After all, my look deep inside showed me two things. The first was that God had put Phil (and countless others) into my publishing life to get me through those 25 years (25 years!!!????), because I lacked certain talents in running a newspaper, because His plan for me was to run a newspaper, and that’s how I was able to run it all those years. The second was realizing I was on God’s timing all that time, and more importantly, I was still on God’s timing for the next step in my career.

So really, the decision to go weekly, however daunting on the human side, was already decided in the Divine, and now was the time. And with Divine intervention I found Brandon, Jackie and Tim.

I met Brandon through messaging on Facebook because friends told me he was doing stories about community news. Something I’ve long had a desire to cover and knew the new iteration of The Business Times was going to cover.

I met Jackie through a recommendation of a friend, even though I had known her through sales (but I forgot) in her previous job, and she’s a member at Canyon View Vineyard Church along with me.

I met Tim because he read my column about Phil’s retirement and sent me an email asking if, perhaps, I could use some consulting during the transition. Obviously, that answer was yes.

Go ahead, tell me it wasn’t Divine. But you’d only be trying to convince yourself.

But until you can explain how these three talented people dropped into my plans in the exact roles I needed, you’ll never convince me otherwise. And at the risk of sounding braggadocious, I think we’ve created a darned good product with darned good stories supported with darned good advertisers being read by darned good readers. Given the fact I have little talent besides some selling and figuring out a way to put it all together for 25 years, you can’t call it anything but a miracle.

That’s how I look at the last year. Nothing short of a miracle. And for the newspaper which comes out a week after you read this column, we’ll have witnessed 52 of them. Considering a year ago I had no idea how we were gonna do it, I’d say it’s time to declare our little office a shrine. Grand Junction obviously needed another news source, and we’ve been blessed to provide it.

And for 2026, we’ve got bigger plans. Except this time, I won’t pray for a miracle, I’ll just expect it. Tis the season, right?

Have a Blessed Christmas and the Happiest New Year.

Craig Hall is owner and publisher of The Business Times. Reach him at 424-5133 or publisher@thebusinesstimes.com