Has It Been A Year? My Thanks To Oskaloosa For A Wonderful Year

This was the first picture published on Osky News. It was taken during the 2010 Sweet Corn Serenade. I hope to have many more pictures to share from this year.

Oskaloosa, Iowa – The idea that has continued to grow. Osky News continues to grow and evolve. Our first days readership included 17 people, (I really want to thank my friends and family for reading that day). It’s now grown to the point where on average, 5,000 unique readers visit Osky News daily. We are shocked and humbled by the great reception we have gotten.

One year can go by so very quickly, and looking back, we have met some incredible people along the way.

Our first story was the Sweet Corn Serenade of 2010, and we have now hit our anniversary. Along the way, you have taught us many things, and most of them are good and show the care and desire our community has to grow and improve itself.

I use to be one of those folks that would say there is nothing to do in this town, but after a year of covering the news in town, I almost want to ask you all to slow down!

Ken Allsup of Osky News is seen firing an AR-15 at a Media Firearms Awareness Course in Elkhart, Iowa

This week you will be noticing changes to the website, as our original layout and idea for the site no longer fits well within it’s walls. You will see a new site joining Osky News in the near future as time allows me to continue working on it.

Our goal at Osky News has always been to provide fresh news, from a different perspective. We still need your help, send us your sports scores, ask your coaches to send them to us the same as they do other publications. Have your leader, no matter the organization, fill us in on what’s happening with you and your friends so we can all share and be proud of your accomplishments.

We have had some surprises, like video of ours being used on the Colbert Report, The O’Rielly Factor, and we had some reports that Jon Stewart used some as well, but unfortunately we never got to see it.

We have passed along video and reports to KCCI, KGAN, and Eastern Iowa News. Recently, Google News picked us up, and that has also helped to spread Oskaloosa to an even greater audience.

At the bottom of this post, I will include a pretty large list of people that have visited Osky News in the past year. Now, by them just visiting does not mean an endorsement from these places towards Osky News, we just find it interesting to see how far and wide the events in our town make it now.

This is what our visitor map looks like for this month. As you can see, our impact goes well beyond Oskaloosa, and in fact Iowa.

Think your kids need to be seen by Major League Baseball, or the NBA? Well, they have been known to stop by and catch up on our local athletes. That is one reason we really hope to be getting more sports reporting from all the schools, so we can help bring even more exposure to our youth.

Osky News has been viewed on all 7 continents, 142 different countries world wide, and of course all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the State of Iowa, 387 different cities and towns have viewed Osky News, with Oskaloosa accounting for a majority of those visits.

Send us an email to info@oskynews.org letting us know what we are doing right, what you might like to see added, and most importantly, let us know what we are doing wrong.

In closing, This year would have been impossible without the help of the volunteers that make up Osky News. Their dedication to this community project is simply amazing, and I can’t think them enough. On that note, I have to express my many thanks to my wife and daughter for putting up with me, or stated better, a lack of me.

Another big thank you goes to our advertisers. Without their support, this would be even more difficult. The costs can and do add up with reporting the news, and with their help, we have been able to bring you even more.

I also wanted to thank those in different government agencies, along private companies that have welcomed not only me, but the concept of Osky News with open arms. Maybe in the next year, we can make some of those unsure about the future of online news into believers. We look forward to working with them.

Below is the list of interesting visits. I wish this meant they were endorsing, but in reality, there was just a story out there that caught someone’s eye. Is your business ready to be caught by one of these people’s eye?

Business
iowa association of school boa, j. c. penney company inc., jeld-wen, jr motorsports, kendall/hunt publishing, cargill inc., grinnell mutual reinsurance co, the principal financial group, honeywell international inc., wells fargo & company, deere & company, the boeing company, nationwide mutual insurance company, google inc., rockwell international corporation, lockheed martin corporation, hy-vee inc, ajinomoto u.s.a. inc., 3m company, yahoo! inc., microsoft corp, pella corporation, bank of america, hewlett-packard company, sherwin williams company, american family insurance, the procter and gamble company, union pacific railroad company, bob brown chevrolet, emerson electric co., fedex, amazon.com inc., chevron corporation, conagra frozen foods, ebay inc, ford motor company, metlife, sears direct response, the home depot inc., wachovia corp, apple computer, ibm corporation, nazarene publishing house, the dow chemical company, xerox corporation, brookhaven national laboratory, brownells, general mills, hon industries, international paper, cablevision executive offices, deutsche bank, export import bank of the u.s, facebook inc., family dollar inc., kmart international headquarters, national pork producers council, seagate technology, texas instruments, toyota motor sales u.s.a. inc., truman state university, wartburg college, caterpillar inc., comptroller of the currency, conocophillips company, dow jones-telerate, general motors corporation, georgia pacific corporation, intel corporation, kansas city royals baseball, major league baseball, polaris industries inc., raytheon company, saudi arabian oil company, sinclair oil corp., united parcel service, american automobile association inc. – aaa/national, american express company, american red cross national headquarters, ames laboratory, amoco corporation, bass pro shop, burlington northern railroad, federal deposit insurance corporation, ford s theatre, google corporate it, kind & knox gelatine inc., korea aerospace industrial, kohls department stores, los alamos national laboratory, macgill and company, motorola inc., namco bandai, national association of securities dealers inc., nba properties inc., newegg inc, nintendo of america, northrop grumman corp., random house inc., royal bank of canada, royal canadian mounted police, s.c. johnson & son inc., staples inc., the aerospace corporation, the goldman sachs group inc., the goodyear tire & rubber company, the johns hopkins medical institutions, the world bank group, theisen supply inc, tiffany and company, usa swimming, vermeer manufacturing company, wendy s international inc., west music, ymca, national rifle association of america, state farm mutual automobile insurance company, cisco systems inc., monsanto, target corporation,

Schools
massachusetts institute of technology, university of iowa, iowa state university, central college, grinnell college, university of northern iowa, des moines area community college, drake university, cornell college, luther college, university of minnesota, buena vista college, des moines university, dordt college, iowa valley community college, texas a&m university, the american college testing program inc., macmillan/mcgraw-hill school publishing company, the george washington university, university of missouri-columbia, university of nebraska-lincoln, brigham young university, coe college, graceland university, harvard university, hawkeye community college, morningside college, school administrators of iowa, stanford university, boston university, florida state university, georgetown university, georgia institute of technology, princeton university, vanderbilt university, ball state university, butler university, columbia university, duke university, kansas state university, michigan state university, oak ridge institute of science and education, old dominion university, st ambrose university, waldorf college, kirkwood community college, purdue university, creighton university, grand view college

Government
executive office of the president, u.s. house of representatives, united states senate, iowa legislature, southern prarie aea15, democratic national headquarters, dnc services corporation/democratic national committee, national republican congressional us govt, senate of california, alaska state government, city of new york, province of british columbia, canadian house of commons, gouvernement du quebec, government of saskatchewan, government of south africa, ivent ministry of defence, ministero della giustizia, national conference of state legislators

Media
the des moines register, tribune company, nbc universal, phoenix newspapers inc., turner broadcasting system inc., cbs corporation, sinclair broadcast group inc., disney worldwide services inc., omaha world herald, washington times,  reuters information technology, broadcast international, hbo & company, iptv pool, national public radio, usa today, canadian broadcasting corporation, fox news channel, gannett co. inc., iptv, journal broadcast group, kwan-ak television network co, life photography, lifetime, media general inc., philadelphia newspapers inc., quincy newspapers inc., robinson daily news, time warner full service network, times media inc