Diane Kortus

I’m sure you’ll agree that our most important memories center on family.

While I relish the times when I received recognition for my work, and will never forget how good it felt to drive home a brand new car I always dreamed of owning, my most treasured memories are of the people I love most.

As I write this column, I am on my way home from Wisconsin after spending a few days with my first grandchild — Connor Daniel Mathes — born July 29 to my son, Andy, and daughter-in-law, Erin.

I left their home with memories that will forever be at the top of my most cherished list.

Holding Connor in my arms and gently rocking him against my chest was déjà vu – transporting me back 27 years to when his father was born. Andy was my firstborn, and those memories of his first few days came flooding back as I embraced his son.

I imagine every mother who holds her grandchild for the first time wonders how it is possible that the newborn they held in their arms as a young women is now the mother or father of the grandchild she is holding today.

For me it was not so much a question of where did the time go, but the realization that my lineage will continue on, and that this new grandchild may someday be holding a grandchild of his own.

Of course, I am sad that Andy, Erin and Connor live so far from my home in Land O’ Lakes. But, I am happy they are close to Erin’s family in Wisconsin, and are less than five hours from my family in Minnesota.

Even though the distance to Florida is far, I know Connor will grow up with a connection to his Grandma Diane that will be just as strong as those he has with his grandparents in Wisconsin.

And I know this because I raised my children in Florida, 1,600 miles from their grandparents in Minnesota. Andy and his sister, Rachel, have always been as close to their grandparents as their cousins who grew up seeing them every few weeks.

I learned when my children were very young that kids have an intuitive, powerful connection to their relatives, no matter where they live. It didn’t matter that Andy and Rachel only saw their Minnesota grandparents two or three times a year. Because when they did, their connection was immediate, and their love was undeniable.

While I’m celebrating the arrival of Connor, I have four siblings who are also welcoming grandchildren this year. Remarkably, between January and September, there are six great-grandchildren being born — five rambunctious little boys (Steele, Billy, Connor, Langston and Louis) and one sweet girl (Lucy).

Can you imagine the mayhem at my father’s this Christmas when all six of these babies come together for the holidays?

It will be an occasion that will be forever implanted in the memories of four generations of Kortuses.

And when those babies grow up and look at photos of themselves and their five cousins, they, too, will marvel at the power of family and be proud that that they are one of the six great-grandchildren born into our family during the first nine months of 2015.

Published August 12, 2015

 

Last summer, at this time, we had just introduced our new larger format that made The Laker/Lutz News the same size as most daily newspapers.

Going bigger was a leap of faith because most newspapers in Florida, and just about everywhere else, were shrinking in size and reducing staff.

We decided to buck this trend.

Instead, we invested in our newspapers by giving readers more stories and photos about their community.

We did this by making the size of our pages 30 percent larger. We also expanded our news coverage with more in-depth stories and colorful photos of local people and community events.

It’s been a year since we launched our new format, and my staff and I are often asked how we’re doing.

I’m proud to say we’re doing great!

One way to measure our success is by the recognition we receive from peers in the newspaper industry.

The most important and prestigious recognition comes from The Florida Press Association and its annual Florida Better Weekly Newspaper Awards competition.

We learned in late July that The Laker and the Lutz News received 11 awards from Florida Press for stories and photos published in 2014.

This includes top honors in two categories for our editor, B.C. Manion, and first place honors in three categories for photographer Fred Bellet.

Our entries were among 1,600 total entries. A third of our entries received awards. That’s an accomplishment that makes me very proud, and it serves as testimony to the outstanding work produced by our editorial team every week.

To put these awards in perspective, the entries for The Laker competed against the largest weekly newspapers in Florida, which often have more resources than we have.

By contrast, our company is a small business independently owned by me.

Twelve of us work together to produce your paper every week — doing everything from writing stories and taking photos, to selling advertisements and creating artwork, to designing and putting our pages together. On top of all that, there’s the business side of the newspaper, which involves invoicing, statements, collections and cash flow.

My staff does everything connected with the newspaper except for printing it and throwing it in your driveway — both services that are contracted to outside companies.

When I tell people the size of our company, many marvel that such a small staff can produce one of the best community newspapers in Florida.

Besides our writing and photography awards, another way to measure our success is by the recognition we receive from local business groups.

We received word earlier this summer that our company was nominated in the service/distribution category of the Pasco Economic Development Council’s Industry of the Year Awards.

Earlier this summer we also were nominated as the small business of the year in the Central Pasco Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards competition. And, just last week we learned that we are up for an award in the same category in the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce’s annual awards.

We will find out in September whether we received an award from the Pasco EDC or the Greater Wesley Chapel Chamber of Commerce. And we send our congratulations to A.L. Saland Insurance Solutions for being named the small business of the year for the Central Pasco Chamber.

Truly, it doesn’t matter if The Laker/Lutz News “wins” in award competitions.

What matters is that the business community, our newspaper industry and our readers recognize and value the work we do, and understand the contributions that we make to local businesses and to the community we serve.

Like the hundreds of businesses who advertise in our pages, we experience the same joys and challenges of working for, or owning, a small business. And like all successful businesses, we take incredible pride in the work that we do and are exuberant when our work receives recognition.

Published August 5, 2015

I come from a very large family — the fourth of 10 siblings. My oldest brother was just 14 when my youngest sister arrived, which made for an incredible busy household bursting with children, from infants through high school students.

With so many mouths to feed, our mother rarely asked us kids what we wanted for dinner. Not that it really mattered — we learned at an early age if we did not eat what was put in front of us, a sibling gladly would clean our plate.

There was only one day of the year when our mother asked what we wanted for dinner, and that was our birthday. Most of my brothers and sisters chose standard kid foods— macaroni and cheese, pancakes and fried bologna sandwiches.

But much to the chagrin of my siblings, I always asked mom to make chicken cacciatore for my birthday dinner. My brothers and sisters would wail, “not spaghetti again,” but to me, chicken cacciatore was special because it was the only Italian dish Mom made with chicken instead of meatballs.

We were a brood of half-Polish and half-Italian kids, but since mom was Italian, we ate a lot more Italian dishes than Polish.

Thinking about this today, pasta and red sauce is inexpensive to make, and since mom cooked dinner for 12 people every night, I’m sure cost factored into her decision of what to make for dinner.

Every week my mother and Grandmother Martinucci, who immigrated from Italy in 1912 when she was 12 years old, chopped onions and garlic, sieved fresh tomatoes, added fresh basil and oregano, and put on a huge pot of red sauce with hamburger and meatballs.

But when they made chicken cacciatore, the red sauce was cooked down without any meat until it was time to drop in sautéed chicken pieces. Then the red sauce and chicken simmered on the stove for hours, until the chicken fell from its bones.

To this day I love chicken cacciatore because it makes me feel special.

Here is my grandmother’s recipe, which is over 60 years old.

But don’t wait for a special occasion to enjoy it. It’s easy to make and takes less time than lasagna or other pasta dishes.

Grandma Martinucci’s Chicken Cacciatore
For the chicken

• 5-6 lbs whole chicken cut into pieces, or 5 lbs chicken legs and thighs
• ¼ c. olive oil
• salt, pepper and other preferred seasonings

For the sauce

• 2 medium onions, thinly sliced – not chopped
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 large can tomatoes (29 ounces)
• 1 large can tomato sauce (29 ounces)
• 1 large can tomato puree (29 ounces)
• 1 tsp salt
• ¼ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp oregano leaves (crushed)
• ½ tsp basil leaves (crushed)
• ½ tsp celery seed
• 2 T sugar
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 c. dry red wine
• 1 c. water

Select chicken with skin on the bone. This can be a whole chicken, or an assortment of legs, thighs and breasts. If the breasts are large, cut in half.

Wash and pat dry chicken dry. Coat with seasoning and brown all sides in olive oil, about 10 minutes on each side. Set aside.

For sauce, saute onions and garlic in olive oil (until the onions are clear). Add other ingredients and cook on low between two hours and three hours, until the sauce thickens. Add chicken pieces, and cook for another hour until the chicken begins to fall off the bone.

Chicken cacciatore can also be made ahead of time and popped in the oven for 45 minutes before serving. If you want to do this, place your browned chicken in a large 9 X 13 casserole dish, and pour the red sauce over the chicken. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes to an hour, until the red sauce bubbles and the chicken pulls away from the bone. If desired, sprinkle 1 cup of mozzarella or other Italian cheeses on top the last 5 to 10 minutes, until melted.

Serve with pasta.

Editor’s Note: Some of our favorite foods not only taste good, but prompt cherished memories, too. We hope this new feature, ‘Recipes to Remember,’ will provide a source of recipes for foods you will enjoy. We also hope the recipes we feature will inspire you to share your recipe, and the story behind it. Want to know more? Email .

Published July 8, 2015

You may have noticed we’ve had a few more advertising circulars in The Laker/Lutz News since the beginning of the year. And, that we’re now selling sticky notes on our front page.

We’ve received a few emails and calls from readers asking about these inserts and notes, and I thought other readers might have similar questions.

So, let’s begin with advertising circulars. New to our papers is the weekly SmartSource coupon book, which has between 28 and 40 pages of manufacturer coupons for mostly grocery, drugstore and household products. SmartSource is included in all of our home delivery routes, which totals 32,000 homes in Lutz, Land O’ Lakes, Wesley Chapel and Zephyrhills. Coupon clippers love SmartSource for the savings it offers, plus it is a perfect complement to the Publix circular that has been in our papers since 2010.

In January, Walmart started running its circular in our Wesley Chapel edition. For now, Walmart is being delivered to the 3,300 homes we reach in the 33545 zip code, but we anticipate other zips will be added in coming months.

SmartSource and Walmart join several long-time circular advertisers in The Laker/Lutz News. In addition to Publix grocery and liquor, most weeks we have circulars from Michaels Arts and Crafts, Ulta Beauty, JCPenney and Ace Hardware. Plus, we’re anticipating that Lowe’s will be coming on board in March once it’s new Lutz store opens on State Road 54.

As much as we wish otherwise, the paper delivered to your particular home may not include circulars from every one of these stores. And that’s because national merchandisers are experts at analyzing zip codes and use The Laker/Lutz News in combination with daily newspapers to reach the households they are targeting in this market.

I share this with you because readers have complained when a friend or family member gets circulars in their paper, but they don’t get them in their edition. These readers typically think we are intentionally omitting their neighborhood.

If it were up to us, we’d insert the same circulars in all 43,750 papers that we print and deliver every week. That would be good for our readers — most whom do not subscribe to a daily paper — and obviously good for our sales. But the number of circulars we insert is determined by the merchant — we can only deliver as many circulars as we receive.

We believe that, in time, our reader loyalty will persuade these national accounts to add all — or at least more — of our circulation to their buy in The Laker/Lutz News. If you want to help us make that happen sooner, let the local manager of these stores know that you would like to receive their circular in your weekly community paper.

Now let’s talk about the front-page sticky notes. This is something new for us that local businesses have inquired about for many years. New technology has finally made these notes affordable for small businesses. Plus, the minimum order has dropped to 25,000, which is about what one needs to put a sticky note on every front page in Lutz and Land O’ Lakes.

We had some complaints last week when a sticky note covered up a front-page photo of the Rev. Ron Aubin, accompanying a story about Our Lady of the Rosary Church’s low-gluten communion hosts. We obviously did not intend for this to happen, and we explained that to Father Ron.

We also want you to know too, that we are working with our printer on the placement of these notes so they do not interfere with our photos. However, when they do, these notes are easy to peel off and we hope will not interfere with your reading enjoyment.

We do understand that many people find these front-page notes bothersome. However, they are easy to remove and we, and the businesses that wish to advertise in their local newspaper, recognize that these are a very effective advertising tool.

Industry research shows that sticky notes increase advertising response rates by 45 percent. Obviously, this makes this form of advertising a cost effective way to let people know about a special offer or product.

In addition to helping local businesses market their products and services, sticky notes helps to pay our bills. The Laker/Lutz News are free newspapers, which means advertising is our sole source of revenue. The ability to generate income from sticky notes helps us to produce a quality community newspaper every week that is delivered free to your home.

Published February 4, 2015

There were a lot of changes at The Laker/Lutz News in the past year. We redesigned our website and Facebook page, increased the size of our news page to match the size of most daily newspapers, added a new B section primarily for photo features and prepared to take our East Pasco edition of The Laker from an every-other-week publication to weekly.

As I reflect on 2014, I see it as a year that we invested in the foundation of our business – upgrading both our printed newspaper and our digital platforms.

With a foundation that is solid and ready to support our future, it’s time to focus on the next phase — improving and expanding the talents of our news staff to produce a publication that gives our readers a broader array of interesting stories and timely news. Leading the effort to tackle our ambitious editorial goals is B.C. Manion, who has been promoted to editor of The Laker/Lutz News.

You most likely will recognize B.C. Manion’s byline. She has been our community editor since August 2010. She frequently writes about people and groups who make a positive impact on our communities, and is our lead reporter covering education and upcoming events, including her popular “Worth The Trip” feature, which identifies attractions, just a short drive away, that are fun and affordable places to visit.

B.C. is a graduate of the journalism program at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Her roots in community journalism go back to her first reporting job in Omaha, Nebraska, where she planned coverage, took photographs, and filed news and feature stories for zoned editions of a weekly newspaper.

She added to her reporting skills by working at a small daily newspaper in Hastings, Nebraska. Her next reporting job was in the highly competitive South Florida newspaper market, where she competed against reporters from The Miami Herald and The (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel.

She joined The Tampa Tribune in 1985, where she worked for 23 years and covered everything from government to gardening. Her work there appeared on the pages of every section of the newspaper except for Sports.

Her current assignment includes staying abreast of issues in Lutz, a community she first learned about when she covered zoning and development issues – her initial reporting beat at the Tribune.

We were fortunate to lure B.C. to The Laker/Lutz News the summer of 2010. Many journalists with so much experience at a metro daily newspaper would consider working for a small weekly newspaper like ours a “step down.”

But not B.C. She saw it as an opportunity to do stories that can have a real impact in the daily lives of our readers.

She understands the value of keeping readers informed of changes that affect their lives, whether that be the opening of a new hospital, the construction of a new state college or the battle over a proposed site for a new charter school.

She especially enjoys writing about the unsung heroes in our communities who quietly go about making a tremendous difference in the lives they touch.

B.C. understands the importance of teamwork, welcomes story ideas from residents and believes that community newspapers offer a forum for local stories that cannot be found anywhere else.

Those are some of the values that I was looking for in editor. So when the time was right to hire an editor for our papers, B.C. was the obvious choice.

Please join me in welcoming B.C. to her new position as editor of The Laker/Lutz News. She is an outstanding journalist. She is passionate about her work and about serving our communities. I am confident she will play an instrumental role as we work to become an even better newspaper in 2015.

Published January 7, 2015

One of the most satisfying pleasures of Christmas is taking down my boxes of ornaments from the attic and unwrapping memories of past holidays.

The flush of memories, temporarily forgotten, comes rushing back as I rediscover ornaments carefully packed away in old newspapers.

The most emotional unveilings are of ornaments given to me the first Christmas after the births of my son and my daughter. My favorites are a little brown ceramic bear with dangling arms that a sister-in-law made for Andy in 1988. And a pink Hallmark carousel pony with Rachel’s name and birthday, May 4, 1992.

My Christmas boxes seem to have more ornaments for “Baby’s First Christmas” than any other theme. There is something endearing about the birth of a child that prompts friends and relatives to bestow these special ornaments on parents.

And then, in what seems like no time at all, reindeers made out of clothespins and glitter-globbed Santas with cotton ball beards take over the ornament box.

So again this year, a few days before Thanksgiving, I dragged down my Christmas boxes and set them on the edge of my garage.

Andy, now 26, was coming home for the holiday with his new wife, Erin. I thought Andy would want to dig through these boxes and take a few ornaments back to hang on his and Erin’s first Christmas tree.

So on Saturday afternoon, Andy and Erin went out to the garage to sort through the decorations. When I checked a half-hour later, they had set aside a dozen or so ornaments, including those from Andy’s first Christmas.

I felt a real tug at my heart when I saw that little ceramic bear — the one I had cherished almost as long as my son — laying on top of their pile. But I just smiled and said I was sure the ornaments they had chosen would look great on their tree.

A few weeks later, my daughter Rachel was home from Jacksonville to celebrate an early Christmas because both of us will be away with friends for the holidays. Like Andy, Rachel went through our Christmas boxes to find favorite ornaments for her tree in Jacksonville. Even before looking, I knew that the little carousel horse with her name in cursive letters would be in Rachel’s take-home pile.

Letting go of Rachel’s carousel horse and Andy’s ceramic bear was a rite of passage — more for me than for my children. I’ve come to realize that parents go through as many rites of passage as their kids — we just don’t talk about it. We anticipate the transitions as our children grow from infants to teenagers, and all too soon leave home for college and jobs with plans and dreams separate from our own.

And one of those rites is passing along our most treasured gifts, which for me includes giving my children their first Christmas ornaments. And it is with joy that I share with you this, my newest Christmas memory.

Diane Kortus is publisher of The Laker/Lutz News. She has owned the newspapers since 2000, and has been publisher since 2009.

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