A Look Back at a Memorable Year

Thank you from the Rahm family

It’s been a wild and wonderful ride since we first introduced Lake Chelan Now one year ago. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank the community for their tremendous support, their stunning photos, their awesome video submissions, and their great story ideas!

We would also like to thank all the businesses who partnered with this fledgling venture through advertising. We are honored to work with you, and we certainly couldn’t have accomplished what we have without you.

Lake Chelan Now is a family business owned and operated by (left to right) Jenna Rahm — Social Media Queen; Dennis Rahm — Interviewer & Broadcaster Extraordinare; Loni Rahm – Creative Writing Superhero; and Kacie Rahm – Research & Communications Star

Prior to launching LCN, our family spent several months in the development phase, with storyboards and concepts, good ideas and not so good ideas, and a few heated discussions. We ultimately decided to make our debut at the Wayne Kelly Memorial Top Dog Parade on St. Patrick’s Day 2018.

That first day, our team of 3 provided Facebook Live coverage of the parade and distributed hundreds of business cards announcing our launch. After the parade, we posted a photo gallery with over 200 pictures along with a YouTube video which attracted people to our social media presence. It was a great start!

Local Coverage & Social Media

Over the past year we have published 842 stories on LakeChelanNow.com – an average of just over 70 stories per month covering a spectrum of three categories: Community, News and Sports.

These stories have been augmented by colorful photos and often contain interview segments, video clips, and links to additional resources or related LCN stories.  On several occasions, stories generated by LakeChelanNow.com have been picked up and shared by other media outlets, government agencies and organizations. This shared content not only extended our reach and showcased the Lake Chelan Valley to new audiences, it has helped us gain loyal followers from across the state and throughout the region.

This first year we have built a social media following of 1,498 on Instagram, 246 on Twitter, and 4,046 on Facebook. This week alone, posts to the LCN Facebook page generated over 11,000 engagements. We invite you to follow us on social media where we feature additional content not always included on the website.

Making Waves

Our exclusive talk show with a couple of old broadcast guys — Steve Byquist and Dennis Rahm – made its debut on April 12. The “guys” have brought in a variety of co-hosts and guests to talk about local events and topics ranging from hydroplanes to hospitals, and from comedy to classic cars.

Making Waves: Season 1, Episodes 1-36 (2018) can be revisited at any time through the LCN archives.

Season 2 (2019) is available by searching inside the main website. These episodes will soon be archived as well.

Community Contributions are Key

Only a few weeks into our venture, we discovered just how vital community interaction and contributions would be.

On April 2, a resident on the north shore sent us a clip of security footage which showed a Moose strolling through his front yard. The online reaction to the LCN moose story was immediate and a little intimidating as people reacted to and shared the clip thousands of times in less than 24 hours.

Wildlife interface stories continue to be extremely engaging: the story which contained a brief video snippet of a bear running through town – submitted by a follower on June 11 – has been viewed over 28,400 times.

Subsequent photos and videos of wildlife, spectacular sunrises and sunsets, and Lake Chelan lifestyles and vistas have garnered even more dramatic numbers.

LCN welcomes your photos and story ideas about life in the Lake Chelan Valley. Send story tips or photos with a brief description via text message to 509-670-3600 or via email to info@lakechelannow.com  We are happy to photo credit you.

Fire Season

Lake Chelan Now provided Website, social media and Facebook live coverage of the Memorial Day Northshore Fire.

It was an ominous start to coverage of what turned out to be a long 2018 fire season. The LCN team used a mix of information resources, images, audio interviews and reliable daily (sometimes hourly) briefing updates with fire management personnel to keep the community informed. 

Live Sports Play-by-Play

In November, LCN kicked off a new phase of live broadcast capabilities with sports coverage of Manson and Chelan at State Volleyball. This was followed by live coverage of many Chelan boys and girls basketball games, as well as the Manson boys at district basketball.  Fans can recapture the sports broadcast action through the LCN Sports Network archives.

This audio platform enables LCN to provide live coverage of sports and other community events, including planned live coverage of the 2019 Manson Apple Blossom Parade.

Events Calendar

Did you know that you can submit your local event information directly to us? Just go to the Events tab on our main menu and click on “add an event”.

What’s coming next? What would you like to see more of in our second year?

Our tagline is “Community Inspired” and it has certainly come true in this first year of Lake Chelan Now. We’ve discovered so much more to appreciate and love about life in the Lake Chelan Valley…but we’ve barely scratched the surface.

We invite you to let us know what you’d like to see more of on LCN. What stories are waiting to be told? What photos need to be shared? How can we improve access to content and use of the product?

If you would like information about advertising, or have suggestions, submissions or feedback, please contact us anytime at info@lakechelannow.com or 509-670-3600.

As we start this new year of Lake Chelan Now, we just want to say thank you to all who live, work and play in the Lake Chelan Valley for your information and inspiration.

A very special thank you to Jerry Isenhart, Chris Raines and Steve Byquist!  Who knew this is where our casual conversations would lead?