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Five years.

When I began the Main Street Gazette on August 23, 2007, I was certain I had a world of advice and thoughts to offer up to a community on the verge of coming into its own. Then, after a few months, I found that I had run through every idea I had scratched down on a notepad before I began. The Gazette, however, wasn’t done with me and through trial and error (Remember when I penned my own version of the stories found in Walt Disney World attractions?) I found segments that worked and continued to tweak the ideas until they were something special. If I’m being totally honest with you, I am still continuing to reach for new ideas and fine-tune those we have to make sure the Gazette is the best reading experience I can put forth.

At the time the Gazette started there were a handful of forums, a few podcast, and so few blogs dedicated to Walt Disney World that I could count them on a single hand. These days there are new and wonderful sites and viewpoint cropping up each day, and I am continually amazed by what I find all throughout the Disney community.

The kid that began this journey five years ago wouldn’t have believed I would be asked to present a Walt Disney World history presentation for a local library, much less speak with CNN about the fortieth anniversary of the Vacation Kingdom. He would scoff at the idea of speaking with giants like Bob Gurr or George McGinnis about their work. Just the thought of being on a podcast or writing for a magazine wasn’t even the brightest wishing star in the sky. That wasn’t what he wanted to do, that wasn’t why he started the Main Street Gazette. He started it for everyone out there who wanted to know more about Walt Disney World.

I closed that first article with words from Roy O. Disney’s dedication of Walt Disney World and the Magic Kingdom. In that dedication Roy said, “May Walt Disney World bring Joy and Inspiration and New Knowledge to all who come to this happy place.” These are the words that I have strived to live by, and the standard to which I have held every story on the Main Street Gazette to, for these past five years. I hope that you’ve caught a glimmer of knowledge, a hint of a smile, and spur to move you forward somewhere in these pages. If I have given each of you that, then I feel I’ve done what I set out to do.

Personal heroes have become friends whom I now consider family. People I had never spoken to, from all over the world, before I started the Gazette are friends I confide in and count myself blessed to have in my life. The Main Street Gazette has afforded me an innumerable amount of opportunities and brought so many wonderful people into my life (I’ve decided not to list you all individually here as it is a ridiculously long list and I am terrified that I will leave a name off of the list that I didn’t mean too. However, each and every one of you knows who you are and how very special you are to me!). Yet, as I have said before, and still believe in my heart, the greatest gift I have been given is that you, the readers, come back to hear what I have to say each day. Thank you, from the bottom of heart.

So, I’ve blathered through food and history, opinions and news, and every little detail in between for five years on the Main Street Gazette, and I’m only just getting started. I’m sorry I forgot to bring the party favors, but that just gives me something to shot for in five years when we celebrate ten years together, right?