Issues Archive

Back in 2011, our team at Southwest Michigan First traveled the region, meeting with thousands of community leaders. One thing became abundantly clear. As the warden in the movie “Cool Hand Luke” would say, “What we’ve got here is failure to communicate.” The leaders knew their own communities but lacked knowledge of what was happening next door. And that’s why we created 269 MAGAZINE. Our simple desire was to celebrate the people, organizations, and ideas that impact our lives in Southwest Michigan. After four years, we produced 580,000 words of editorial. That’s equal to nine business books!

But as Geoffrey Chaucer said, “Time … wait[s] for no man,” and neither does technology. Which is why we launched our digital daily—FIRST& 42—to deliver information in a timely and concise fashion. So, we are declaring victory and investing more of our time and talent into growing “FIRST& 42.” That means putting 269 MAGAZINE on the shelf. Because we like you, we are sharing our “shelf” with you. And like FIRST& 42, its digital!