Welcome to the Merrick Herald Life!

Dear Reader,

This week marks a new start for the Merrick Herald and Merrick Life. With this issue, the two newspapers become one in a new publication called the Merrick Herald Life. It is indeed an exciting time for us at the paper.

Richner Communications, the Herald’s parent company, recently acquired Merrick Life. Bringing the two newspapers and their respective staffs together will allow us to build a better, stronger paper whose guiding mission will be serving our readers’ best interests.

Each of the papers has a long history of watchdog journalism and civic engagement. The Merrick Herald began 15 years ago, and over the past decade and a half, it has brought home more than 100 national, state and Long Island press association awards for journalistic excellence.

Merrick Life called the community home for 75 years, and was the hometown paper for generations of Merokeans. It, too, has a long tradition of winning press association honors for its reporting and community involvement. The Life’s longtime editor, Paul Laursen, joins the Herald Life as contributing editor.

With the combined resources and community insights of the new Merrick Herald Life, readers can rest assured that each week you will receive top-notch, hyper-local journalism that addresses your need to know about all that’s happening in your hometown.

The Herald Life will serve the community with a wide range of reporting on Merrick events, the schools, high school sports and crime. You’ll also see an expanded Meandering Around Merrick, a calendar page that was a familiar staple of Merrick Life. And of course, through our editorials, the paper will remain an independent, outspoken advocate on the community issues that matter to you most.

The Herald Life’s office will be at our state-of-the-art headquarters and printing plant at 2 Endo Blvd. in east Garden City, just off exit M3W on the Meadowbrook Parkway, a seven-minute drive from Merrick. We welcome readers to drop off photographs and letters you would like published in the paper. You can also send material to sbrinton@liherald.com.

We look forward to seeing all of you at the annual Merrick Fair on Sept. 28 and 29, sponsored by the Merrick Chamber of Commerce. Please stop by our booth, where we’ll have free copies of the paper and other giveaways.

We thank you for your continued patronage, and look forward to a bright future together.