The Hog Herald, a page on The Kewanee Voice, will continue to act as the official publication for Kewanee Hog Days after the committee voted on Tuesday to continue the partnership formed between the two organizations last year.
The Kewanee Voice’s editor and publisher appeared before the committee in March of 2023 and asked for the committee to support the local news organization a full two months before the launch of the news website. The committee not only voted to approve the request, but provided a sponsorship that would assist the website to get up and running.
The sponsorship included an ad package for Hog days and the addition, starting in June, of the Hog Herald on TKV website that replaced the now defunct Hogsmopolitan, published each year by the Star Courier.
This week, Managing Editor of TKV, Susan DeVilder, told the board that since the committee’s early support of the news site last year, readership has grown and presented the committee with a report showing the website had over 23,000 users in the month of January.
The hope this year, DeVilder said, is to print paper copies of the Hog Herald a few weeks before Hog Days, although doing so would be somewhat of an experiment to see how well the seasonal publication would be received by the public.
Kewanee Hog Days Co-Chair Larry Flannery told the committee that supporting local news made good sense and agreed with the idea of printing the Hog Herald on a trial basis.
The Hog Herald will begin publishing online news and information about the perennial festival starting in June. This year’s festival, with the tagline of “That’s the Way I Like it,” will be held over Labor Day weekend Aug. 30 -Sept. 2.
