Thank you for being a friend.

Well y’all, I’ve got some bad news. Next week, after almost a decade of local newsing, I’ll be shutting down RVANews.

That’s some sad news right there, but it’s some true news.

What do you say in a public goodbye that’s not super cliche and boring? I’m not sure, and I’m not sure avoiding cliches is even possible. So, with that in mind, now prepare yourself for the RVANews version of the part at the end of The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy tells everyone how great they are and how much she’ll miss them all.

And it’s true. I really will miss working with all of the incredibly talented folks that made RVANews possible.

Richard has been at the front of Richmond’s community news scene since the very beginning of time. Without him and his incredible willingness to work with me and my crazy ideas, none of this would probably ever have happened. I can’t imagine local news without him, and doubt I will have to–the guy can’t stop covering the ins and outs of Richmond’s neighborhoods. Also, he writes the best headlines of any person in town.

Lauren’s extremely hard work over the last forever has kept the lights on and put RVANews in a position to do what we do and do it while paying our bills. She took a risk on a young, desperately unproven news website, and I’m very thankful for that. She’s grown our book of business over time to include basically every company in Richmond. It’s been impressive to watch.

Shoutout to our events calendar maven, Autumn! The blood and sweat she’s poured into the RVANews calendar over the years would fill multiple growlers.

It’d be impossible to enumerate through all of the freelancers we’ve worked with over the years–impossible because the number is truly uncountable. When I look back over our archives, it’s like looking through a Who’s Who of smart, funny, Richmonders that I wish I hung out with more. Thank you guys for making up the fleshy bits of what we do here (gross).

Susan is my best friend, my pal, and my confidant. She was with me the night–at a booth in Ipanema, where all great ideas begin–I first talked about starting something like RVANews. If I’m being honest, the whole thing was probably her idea anyway. She’s been there to filter all my dumb ideas, celebrate each success, and encourage me when things looked bleak. She’s steered the direction of RVANews in a totally not-creepy, not-Rasputiny way since the very, very beginning. My biggest regret is not bringing her on in an official capacity sooner. She’s the smartest and funniest person I’ve ever worked with / known in real life. I just googled the lyrics to “Thank You For Being a Friend” and started crying.

The theme here is that I’ve surrounded myself with great people that, despite all of my nonsense, made it possible to do cool things. Together, sometimes we made a difference.

Our regularly scheduled content will run through Friday, and RVANews The Website will stay up for as long as I can manage it. There’s a lot of Richmond’s history in there, and it’d be a shame to lose it all. You can read below for a couple of my anticipated FAQs.

So…I think that’s it, you guys. I’m very proud that I was part of making something that you guys, all of our readers, thought was a cool place to come hangout. Now, let’s move those hangouts to real life and maybe add in a few beers? If you have any other questions, you can find me on Twitter as @rosscatrow. Feel free to ask away!

-Ross

— ∮∮∮ —

Wait, what?

Yeah, crazy, right? RVANews will cease to function as it currently does this coming Friday, June 10th, 2016.

What the heck happened, you guys?

A bunch of things. The short-term thing is that our one-woman sales machine was offered and accepted a great opportunity elsewhere. Longer term: We struck out on a couple of attempts to grow our sales machine beyond the one, very hard-working woman.

Well, just hire a new dang person!

Unfortunately, there’s just not enough cash floating around to get us through hiring another person, bringing that person up to speed, and then having that person start crushing the ad sales.

I’m a rich business mogul and would like to throw an obscene amount of cash at you to continue your small, local news website.

Cool!

What are all the RVANewsers going to do now?

I’m not sure, but you should totally ask them! They’re all very wonderful and would probably love chatting with you.

What are you going to do now?

I have no idea! For the longest time, my identity has been wrapped up in this website. It’s strange to imagine a world where that is not the case–it’s almost like I’ve small-businessed myself out of actual, employable skill sets.

If you have any great ideas for the future of my life, please let me know!

But, but, but, what about <insert your favorite column name>?

A small piece of good news: Good Morning, RVA will continue unabated. I’ve found it to be very rewarding, so I’m gonna keep doing it.

Other than that, though, who knows! I don’t want to commit to anything, but you know how sometimes I just can’t not write about busses, or bikes, or education, or City Council…

As for our other authors, you should 100% definitely reach out to them (especially if you’re an editor in town!) and drop them a kind word.