We are 13 years old today.
Your favourite newspaper, Hawke's Bay Today, is finally a teenager.
It was launched on May 3, 1999 as the result of a merger between the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune in Hastings and Napier's Daily Telegraph. Although we have been here for more than
150 years under one masthead or another, it is still a milestone for Hawke's Bay Today.
The publication has come a long way in that time and has seen a lot of changes, including the emergence of the internet as an instant source of news, the upgrading of computer systems and the change to mornings earlier this year.
It must have been a big decision to make.
I have been told that not everyone in the community was happy with the closure of the beloved papers of two distinct cities, but, in hindsight I think the merger was the right way to go.
The man responsible for bringing the two papers together under a new masthead, the first editor of Hawke's Bay Today, is my old friend Jim Eagles.
He is a former colleague of mine at the New Zealand Herald, where he holds the much-desired position of travel editor.
I phoned Jim to remind him of the anniversary and he said that he still feels it was a good idea to merge the papers because "the region needed to be brought together".
Jim has other things on his mind these days as he is about to go into well-deserved retirement, but he counts the years he lived in Hawke's Bay as among the best years of his life.
He certainly rates the region as the best he has lived in.
But we all know that already.
The look of the paper has certainly changed a lot since those days.
Newspapers have to move with the times and we are committed to giving you the best possible publication.
We have also put a lot of effort into our website: www.hbtoday.co.nz.
What I have seen in the short time I have been editor is just how much a part of the community the paper has become.
I get quite a few calls from readers each week and I am always left with the clear impression that Hawke's Bay Today belongs to its readers.
It has also done its bit to bridge any divide between Napier and Hastings. We certainly see ourselves as the paper of and for the region. We don't care where you are from, we want to be your paper of choice.
We take that seriously and believe the readers come first.
Our aim remains giving you all the local news, sport and opinion you want.