(Chelsea Update would like to thank Bob Milbrodt for the information in this story.)
Last Monday, the Chelsea Kiwanis Club heard from Lisa Allmendinger, publisher of Chelsea Update.
She has been in the media business for over 40 years. Lisa was the editor of an international magazine called “I Love Cats” while she worked at a newspaper in New Jersey. She then moved to Michigan to work at the Ann Arbor News and other publications for several years before starting Chelsea Update in 2012.
Celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Update, she talked about coverage of Chelsea and the recent Chelsea Community Fair last month, while thanking reporters Crystal Hayduk and Lisa Carolin and photographers Alan Ashley and Burrill Strong.
She is very grateful for the support the Update has received from the community in readership and in monetary donations. Advertising from businesses at Update’s beginning, like Chelsea State Bank and Cole Funeral Chapel to name just two, got things off to a good start.
Chelsea Update intends to present local news in a fair, balanced and unbiased manner. Readers had been happy with the way news had been covered for the first eight years of Update’s existence. Lisa feels that changed with the advent of COVID and wide political division in the country. She began to see some readers post vicious and profane comments on social media, and began receiving prank phone calls in the middle of the night. That led her to turn off comments and write a column asking the community if she should continue publishing Chelsea Update. She received a positive response that people still enjoyed the daily news source.
Lisa thanked the all-volunteer Chelsea Community Fair Board for putting on their most successful and incident free fair ever, stating it is the best event in the city and a week where everyone can come together and just have good fun.
She announced that her prize-winning rally obedience show dog and full-time staff member, Buzz, will soon be getting a little brother, to hopefully continue the showing tradition.
Monday’s Kiwanis meeting will be the analysis of the activities at the fair, the club’s largest fundraiser.
