Ryan Mitchel Collins (pictured) has been serving as the Managing Editor of The Maui News since March. Collins is originally from Craig, Colorado where there’s more cows than humans and paniolos are the norm. Collins has resided in Waimea, Kauai the last five years where he taught 8th grade English and worked as the weekend editor of The Garden Island News. Collins has served as the managing editor of The Vernal Express, Uintah Basin Standard, San Juan Record, and owns the publishing company Powder River Publishing that has published 26 books. Collins has also authored four books of literary fiction (Everyone Dies Alone, For the Sake of Tomorrow, The Only Way Home, and The Gift of the Waters). Courtesy photo

The past few months and years have ushered in tremendous tsunamis of change. It seems that ever since the new decade hit, we have experienced change at a rate and frequency that probably has been seen in the past, but at this moment in time seems unique and brand new.

A saying handed down to me long ago always holds steadfast, “this too will pass.”

Change has the ability to either bring out the worst in people, or make them adapt and come up with creative new ways to do something different, and show their true heart.

We’re facing tidal waves of change in Hawaii, and Maui especially. How we deal with these changes will be what defines this time and that is no different in the newspaper business.

You may have noticed some changes within our newspaper. First and foremost, we have shifted to a weekly print edition after running our last daily paper at the printing press on Saturday June 1.

It was change that resulted in the producing of the first weekly edition of the Maui News’ long history that began in 1900. As we go forward with that change, we ask your humble assistance to create change for Maui and our nation for that matter, for the better.

We’re in new territory as a weekly paper with the transition into delivering the local news in a different form than many have become accustomed to over the years. Now that the first weekly edition is a thing of the past, we can focus on moving forward. The saying ‘we’re moving forward’ is something I have heard many different incantations of. Some of them good, and some of them bad.

The move to mostly digital editions is something done for rebirth and necessity. One that will have to be done throughout. We will move forward with a goal in mind to create a hefty Thursday paper with a focus on what Maui is now, not what it used to be. Because we are striving to be in the now, not the then. It’s a change that is happening to the newspaper business as we knew it and loved it in the past.

We can’t do any of these changes without you dear reader and we will lean on you in these times of change to guide us. Your voices are what we lean on to move us forward. You are the heart of this newspaper.

If there is something that you think is newsworthy, let us know. If there is something that you think deserves attention, share your Manao. If we don’t have you, we will be replaced by AI, and that is a change we don’t want to see.

Maui and the world continues to heal from the rough waters the past four years have dashed us all around in. And “this too will pass.”

You can expect a hefty weekly paper from The Maui News every Thursday morning. You can also expect “Paniolo’s Corner” to make a weekly appearance. I can guarantee that in a world of uncertainty.

It is my humble dream to serve this community in the role of managing editor for The Maui News in the shade of Haleakula. I humbly accept the challenge and ask for your help in guiding this malihini to truth and aloha.

Twain once said – “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.”

I’m not one to contradict Samuel Clemens, but I still try.