Happy Birthday to us: You get the presents!!!

It was five years ago today.

Using a laptop we found on craigslist for $60 and picked up from a stranger in the Sanford 7-11 parking lot, we started The Lebanon Voice.

I had been toying with the idea of a micro-publication for some time, but my partner, Martha Soto-Galicia, who is from Miami, complained so incessantly about not getting any news from where we lived, that it brought into focus the need for a newspaper right here in Lebanon.

So on April 13, 2012, on a crude drag n drop website, we published our first article. We never thought to archive it that first month, so the first article still able to be seen came in May. "Jamming the jammer: Feds, locals eye dispatch tapes, narrow search" was the headline. You can still read the story under the Archive button on our present website. Just click "Previous Site Archives and then click on "May" on the left, halfway down the home page.

Once we started, we couldn't stop. The readership grew, the advertisers grew. The rest is pretty much history.

Many newspapers struggle to last two or three years.

The Lebanon Voice is still growing - now a subscription newspaper - with nary a day going by without new signups.

We're not even going to try to list the big stories we've discovered on our own, stumbled upon like Inspector Clouseau or been tipped off to by one of our loyal readers.

We're just going to say we're deeply humbled for your support.

Thank you so much.

And to thank you, we're giving away four annual subscriptions (a $50 value) the next four days.

At random times the next four days beginning today, we'll post a message on The Lebanon Voice Facebook Page letting you know a subscription is up for grabs.

We'll ask you to complete the sentence, "I read The Lebanon Voice because ..."

Judges will choose one from the first five emails sent to the newspaper's email at thelebanonvoice@aol.com within five minutes after the initial post to determine a winner.

That's four a day for four days. Sixteen chances to win.

The contest is open to both subscribers and nonsubscribers. Present subscribers will get an additional year tacked onto their membership.

Again, thank you to all our readers. Without you there would be no Lebanon Voice.