Last week the end of an era quietly slipped by. After six years of running the website SouthboroughNews.com, resident Linda Hubley published her last post.
When Linda launched Southborough News in May 2007, there was nothing else like in town. It was the first online news source dedicated solely to Southborough. Over the years, Linda has updated the site nearly every day with the latest news, events, and some wonderful photography.
In an announcement posted on her website last week, Linda said February 9 would be her final day updating the site. “I have struggled the past several months coming to this decision but as my computer and the software to update the website have aged, it made it a bit easier to make that decision,” she wrote.
Linda wrote that while she enjoyed developing the site and sharing the news with her fellow residents, it was a big time commitment. Updating the site each night took at least two hours, she said.
At the Board of Selectmen meeting this week, Selectman Bill Boland acknowledged Linda’s contributions to the town. “She did a great job…The site will be missed,” he said.
Linda’s contributions to our community extend beyond her website. Last year she was honored as an Unsung Heroine by the Commission on the Status of Women, and in 2010 she was recognized for her conservation work by the Southborough Open Land Foundation.
Personally, I owe a debt of gratitude to Linda. Her site was an inspiration to me when I launched My Southborough four years ago, and it continued to be over the years. She blazed the trail I followed.
While she is not updating the website anymore, Linda remains active on the Southborough News Facebook and Twitter feeds, so you can continue to follow her there.
Please join me in thanking Linda for all she has done for our community over the years.
(Photo: Linda Hubley, contributed)
Thank you Linda. I’ll miss your site, but totally understand and can identify with your choice to close up shop. We’ll see you on Facebook!
Thank you Linda for a stellar website that was trendsetting in our Community. You helped keep us informed. I appreciate all the time that you put into it for so long as well as I am sure all residents of Southboro and beyond do as well. As happy as I am for you, I am equally and selfishly sad for losing such a great piece of Southboro. But we know we have not heard the last of your great endeavors!! Kudos again on a wonderful job!
Linda, I will definitely miss your site. You handled all the news professionally and in a caring way. Thank you for your contribution to the town, your neighbors and friends! You did a great job!
Linda, your work was greatly appreciated by many of us – thank you!
Linda,
You did a fantastic job creating and maintaining Southboroughnews. I truly enjoyed finding out what was going on in town, reading the articles, and looking at the pictures (and my kids especially enjoyed when one my them were pictured!). Thank you for all your time hard work. We will greatly miss the Southboroughnews.
Thanks Linda! I appreciate all your effort on behalf of our town.
Thanks to Linda and also to Susan for carrying on good work.
THANK YOU LINDA!!!! You were a pioneer that paved the way for the multitude of on-line news/blogs that are servicing our community today. If many in our community don’t know, Linda has and will (most likely) continue to selflessly serve Southborough in an array of other areas beyond that of SouthboroughNews.com. Thank you….. Linda.
Thank you Linda for keeping us informed about the news and history of Southborough.
Thanks for all the good you do for our town Linda!
Linda,
Thank you for the years of work on your wonderful web site, it will be missed! However, maybe now you’ll have time for that lunch we’ve been trying to arrange for the past couple of years.
You have worked tirelessly for many years on issues that make Southborough a better community as well as on issues of regional significance. And it is that passion that made your web site a success. Thank you!
Thank you Linda! I enjoyed see you at Santa Day over the years! Best of luck to you.
Linda,
As one of the senior of Southborough I think I speak for many of those with long histories in town that the closing of your site is a great loss. You provided great coverage of old and new events that make this community Southborough. You were able to capture those day to day events of life in our town like no one else. I have friends who moved away from town 50 years ago who would tell me they kept in contact with their home town through Southborough News.
Thanks Linda for giving all the time and energy you put into creating and maintaining those connections.
Thanks everyone for the kind words about the Southborough News. I started it when our children were still in school. There was a void in town for news and it was a natural fit to showcase my love for photography and computers. I have met so many nice people along the way. The site was read by people in every single city and town in the Commonwealth along with all fifty states and over fifty countries worldwide. It was awesome to receive letters and emails from near and far. I still am receiving them as people find out the traditional website is no longer up dated. However, many have joined the facebook and twitter site.
I found that I just didn’t have the time to spend on updating the traditional site let alone locate and chase down advertising for it. The platform the website was based on had become more outdated and troublesome and my computer started limping along. I really didn’t want to put more capital and time learning a new platform into the traditional website. With facebook, I don’t have any expenditures so I don’t need to locate the advertisers. It is quick and easy and I’m not really tied to it like I was the traditional site which took up to 2 hours or more a night to update.
In Feb/March we took a vacation to Ft. Myers Beach. It was the first time in six years I did not have my computer with me and it was so relaxing being out of touch electronically. To give up the traditional website was a very hard decision to make. I miss it too, but I am enjoying my “free” time. *(comment about FL, they had the red tide, rip currents, dead fish and after the third day morning temps started at 36 and struggled to reach 65 with clouds and winds. I would check Southborough in the AM and being 1400 miles apart the two places were only 6 degrees difference in the AM)
Thank you one and all for supporting the Southborough News over all these years!!