Kevin told me once, years ago during one of my Home Ranch “photo shoots” for the Examiner, that I was turning the Campbells and cowboys of Hoback Basin into the same kind of pictorial overabundance that co-founder Rhonda Swain made of her beloved Green River Drift.

People will get tired of seeing us over and over, he feared. Well, that may be so. Personally, when I worked first and only for the Sublette Examiner, I never felt we could have too many western lifestyle photos for the archives.

In several weeks – on June 27 to be exact – the Sublette Examiner will publish its final edition, so whatever runs on these hallowed pages until then will be the last time for this county’s “alternative” weekly. Before another cofounder Deanne Swain hired me over the phone many years ago, I was in awe of the Examiner’s backstory.

These women quit the Roundup and decided to open their own newspaper. Period.

It’s very bittersweet to be writing this news because I doubt many people know outside this office that once again the Pinedale Roundup will become Sublette County’s only weekly newspaper. The corporate decision cited “revenue” but we think the Examiner not only paid for itself, it helped support struggling weeklies elsewhere.

After whittling down to one paper and one deadline, we understand that the Pinedale Roundup will contain the same countywide news previously featured in both papers.

With four Examiners left to go in this lifetime including today, June 6, we’re going to have one last quick look at the misty Memorial Day morning of friends gathered for branding at the Campbell Ranch on Dell Creek Road.

Of course, I can run these slices of life as I see them in the Pinedale Roundup, where I expect to keep my hard-won Ag page, but honestly, it won’t be the same…