We launch our third, "micro-local" Web site this Sunday, June 1, serving the small and beautiful town of Wayne. The site is accessible through our home pages (www.kjonline.com and www.onlinesentinel.com) or directly at www.waynejournal.com

As you may know, we previously launched sites for China (www.chinasentinel.com) and Farmington (www.farmingtonsentinel.com). They have been well-received by readers, community leaders and local advertisers. So now we're on to community No. 3.

The longer I am here (now 16 months on the job as executive editor), the more I appreciate our Sports staff and its commitment to local coverage.

I have some perspective, too: For three years, 1999-2001, I was sports editor at the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram. That may have been my favorite job out of many, and we did some good work there, including a 20-part series looking at "Maine's Great (Sports) Events" from the 20th Century.

During one year, the Press Herald's daily and Sunday sections were ranked among the 10 best in the nation by the Associated Press Sports Editors group, for newspapers Portland's size. We were all so proud to earn that recognition.

Want to guess where this one will be?

We launched our first "micro-local" Web site, ChinaSentinel.com, in December 2007. It was an attempt to do a virtual weekly newspaper -- a community newspaper online only.

If you haven't seen it, I strongly encourage you to visit the site. It has a lot of China news but also a comprehensive business directory, list of local officials and contact information and even a depth chart of China Lake.

I used to think my younger sister had a "safe" job. She's a radiology technician at a pretty big hospital. We all need hospitals, X-rays and other scans from time to time, right?

I used to think my older sister had a safe job. She's a middle school health and physical education teacher. Has been there for more years than she'd care for me to mention. That has to be secure, right?

Driving to Augusta this morning on Route 202, it became visibly obvious that political season's upon us.

There were signs all over the median -- from Susan Collins. Ethan Strimling and many others.

A week ago, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel started publishing a series of profiles about people running for the 1st Congressional District seat in Maine, the seat being vacated by Rep. Tom Allen as he opposes Collins for Senate.

We have an article by Staff Writer Craig Crosby running Sunday in both newspapers about the renewed growth -- it's not really new -- of customer-service call centers in Maine.

New companies are coming to Farmington, Wilton and Pittsfield, so we wanted to look at the trend once again. Why do companies locate their call centers here? Is this the kind of economy Maine really wants?

Without giving away too much, the upshot of most people quoted in the story is that Maine is better off having these jobs than not having them.

We had a competitive, fun exchange between two key editors at Monday's front-page meeting. We hold this meeting each day at 3:30 p.m. to decide what's likely to go on the front pages the next day.

George Myers, city editor at the Morning Sentinel, said a photo by David Leaming of a man catching alewives near the Fort Halifax Dam in Winslow would be "the best photo in either paper tomorrow."

They're more fun now. And a little more irreverent.

As I've written before, one of the best things about my job is that I get to go to some cool events. Saturday, I attended the Unity College commencement. The Morning Sentinel received a "citation" from the college for our environmental coverage and editorials.

I told the crowd we'd rather receive awards like this from local readers and institutions than from national journalism organizations. And we truly would.

Readers: From time to time I share critiques that I've previously sent to the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel staffs./Eric
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We'll see.

We covered the GOP state convention extensively over the weekend because Mitt Romney was speaking and it was in Augusta. (We'll do something comparable with the Democrats.)

The stories from staff writer Susan Cover and the Portland Press Herald and Associated Press reporters frequently mentioned "confidence" from the Republicans this year. If that indeed was the tone, it's going to be an interesting year in Maine.

You'll find out this Sunday.

Morning Sentinel reporter Alan Crowell has been working on a story about how declining student populations in some of central and western Maine's smallest towns are forcing major changes.

In some cases, programs like Head Start are affected. Students from different grades sit in the same classrooms with the same teacher.