Hershberger brings wealth of experience to SST staff

Forrest Hershberger has joined the staff of the Sidney Sun-Telegraph as news editor.

He will be writing sports, local government and features in addition to other duties as assigned.

Hershberger comes to Sidney with more than 20 years of community newspaper experience. He started his career in Sterling, Co., in 1990 as a reporter. He moved to the Alamosa, Co., area in the mid-1990s to work at the Valley Courier, then transferred to the weekly newspaper office. He returned to northeast Colorado about a year and a half later to work at the Julesburg Advocate.

In 1997, he was offered the news editor position at the Journal-Advocate in Sterling. He was interim editor during the bombing of the World Trade Center towers. He stayed there as editor until accepting a teaching position with the Colorado Department of Corrections, a position he held for about four years.

He returned to the Journal-Advocate in 2006 as news editor and promoted to editor a few months later. He stayed at that position until December 2010. He was hired by the South Platte Sentinel, then the weekly newspaper in Sterling, in 2012 where he remained until January 2017. The Sentinel was purchased by the ownership of the Journal-Advocate in July 2016.

"Community journalism has a certain magic that is hard for me to walk away from. I enjoy telling people's stories and keeping a community informed as well as possible. I tend to think most people will make the right decision, given enough information to do so. Normally, it is not the duty of a reporter to tell the public how to think," Hershberger said.

"I've know Forrest for a long time," said Sun-Telegraph Editor Don Ogle. "His dedication to the community and readers has always been impressive. To have him on staff, with his experience, is going to benefit the community greatly."

In his personal time, Hershberger has authored two books and has three manuscripts in progress. He also enjoys bicycling and traveling.