The end of an era.

It is official, the good times are over in Riverdale.

In a move that was seen long before the sun set, the Hanford Sentinel has closed the Twin City Times, a newspaper that I was a journalist at for nearly a year and a half. It is a move made after I left the newspaper barely a month ago.

It doesn't surprise me that the decision was made to close the Twin, but it is a little tough to swallow. My whole time there, I was always worried that the small newspaper serving Riverdale, Caruthers and Easton was about to close its doors, but it outlived myself. Actually they probably closed it because it would have been to much trouble to find a reporter after I left.

I owe a lot to the Twin and all those I served in the communities I reported on. I made a lot of friends and learned more than I ever could in a classroom. It is a shame to see that it never got the backing it deserved. It was doomed since I got there, never given the chance to succeed.

But when the ink fades away from the pages of the Twin City Times, more than just the readers will be left in the dark. Mary Mancillas the office manager for the Twin will be out of the job. She has put her heart and soul in the Twin for nearly a decade, writing stories and taking photos, when all she was asked to do is answer phones. She is the one that has kept it together for so many years, a truly sad day for her.

It is funny that the last issue will be published on my 21st birthday, September 26, furthermore reminding me that one chapter in my life has past and another has started. There really is no going back now, even if I wanted to.

I am sad to see the paper that was so good to me, one I worked on so hard, just shut down. Like I said before, it was a paper that was never given a chance by a company that just doesn't know it's readers or employees. Hopefully down the line, it will be revived and flourish like I and a few other people know it can.

So here is to the Twin City Times: an end to a good paper; an end to an era.