Hello, Pierce County and surrounding areas.

My name is Chris Bieri. I’m the new Editor/General Manager at the Pierce County Tribune.

Some of you may know me or recognize me from my work at the Minot Daily News, where I was a sports writer and sports editor for about six years.

I’ve spent the past year as a news reporter at the Grand Forks Herald before taking the job here and I’m excited to produce a quality paper for this community.

Within my first two days at the PCT, I covered a city council meeting and a county commission meeting, so I’ve had an opportunity to meet some community leaders and I intend on getting much more familiar with the area and its people in the coming weeks.

As I get into the community, I want the paper to have a strong presence with the news that’s important to the population with an emphasis on agriculture, schools, local issues and the growth of the area.

I’d also like to tell the stories of the people in this community with interesting feature articles.

I have a strong background covering sports and plan on providing excellent sports coverage, focusing on Rugby, but including neighboring areas.

I don’t plan on making any major changes to the format of the paper initially. I realize that people probably like the familiarity of what the Pierce County Tribune has been in past years.

I am going to implement one change immediately — the addition of some pages devoted to the outdoors. It will be two pages initially and could grow depending on its popularity. This will be a place for stories, columns and photos related to hunting and fishing as well as other outdoor activities like hiking, bird watching, skiing or whatever suits the fancy of the people here.

I’m looking for contributers for the outdoors pages, so if you are interested in writing or know someone who is, you can contact me at cbieri@thepiercecountytribune.com or by calling or stopping in for a visit at the paper. We will also take submitted photos and if you’d like to advertise in that portion of the paper, contact Chuck Repnow. I’m excited for this new addition and I hope the readers are too.

Being born and raised in Minot, I’m familiar with this part of the state, but not nearly as well as the people who have called this area home for many years.

So if anyone has an idea for a story, I’d like to hear about it and the same contact info for people interested in the outdoors pages goes for any other story ideas as well.

I plan on being heavily involved in the community, so if you see me around, please introduce yourself and I’ll do the same.