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The yearly meeting at Raymond James was highlighted by special guests: Bud Herron (The Future of HSJ), Mike Harding (Why Hope and Why Write for HSJ), Jimmy Horton (Why Support HSJ and Hope from Florida), and Tim Cleland (Newspaper Experiences of Yesterday & Thoughts of HSJ Now).

The HSJ Team finalized becoming our own nonprofit with much thanks to Heritage of Hope for having us within their umbrella since 2015.

With many hours of searching, we chose Hanover Insurance Group in Worcester, Massachusetts through Shepherd Insurance in Carmel, Indiana to provide a liability policy with one selection factor of Shepherd being due to connection with former Hope basketball star Bill Shepherd who led our school to our first sectional and regional titles in 1945.

The HSJ Team has been in several conversations with Ancestry.com/Newspapers.com hoping to work with their organization in the near future.

HSJ was proud to present much community content once again through our extremely gifted Content Coordinator, Jenn Guthrie, in particular an article about Hope showing great support when Joe Baute (Chopper) had an unfortunate tractor accident with the Zollman and Swope children leading the way with their Golden Lemonade Stand.

The 5th HSJ Online Hope Run/Walk reached a new record of participants and money with much thanks to Ben Finke, Coach of Hauser Cross Country, Erica Raisor, Coach of Hauser Volleyball, and Bradley Dickens, former Hauser graduate and cross country member.

In conjunction with Duck Creek, the community once again helped us sell over 300 mums.

Strietelmeier Corn Dog Shirts, with design work by Rhett Whittington and Special by Design, were offered to the general public with several orders.

The HSJ Strietelmeier Corn Dog Stand and HSJ Strietelmeier Pineapple Whip Stand each had a great year consequently helping the HSJ General Budget.

The HSJ General Budget of $20,000 was reached, and the HSJ Foundation started in July 2021 is nearing $87,000 which solidifies the future of Hope always having a media source.

HSJ Online is one of 6,000 remaining newspapers in the United States with that total decreasing significantly each year and was among the first nonprofit digital approaches.

Michael Cartwright, keynote speaker at the HSJ Benefit, emphasized the Dixon family's impact years ago in regard to local news after spending hours of research about Mildred Dixon Herrod's passion and is pleased the community still has a newspaper to carry on their devotion and the devotion of others.

There were close to 300,000 HSJ Site Interactions for the year which is highly unusual for a small-town nonprofit newspaper.

HSJ reached 2,000 Facebook Likes with that number being quite notable.

Jenn Guthrie, HSJ Content Coordinator, stated the following in her speech at the HSJ Benefit about what inspires her about Hope: “The love of the community. Its people, each and every one. Their amazing, beautiful, and sometimes unbelievable, stories. The community's dedication to its heritage and history. Hope's hope for its community and future. Hope's belief in HSJ Online. Hope's continued support for local journalism. You, all of you.”

The HSJ Online Team is extremely grateful for the previous owners/editors/publishers of The Hope Star-Journal, in particular Larry Simpson and Charlie and Carol Biggs who continued a local paper even when quite challenging, and we can't possibly thank the Hope Community enough for the never ending support, If having any questions concerning our HSJ General Budget or HSJ Foundation, please feel free to contact any member of our team.

Michael Dean, Jessica Deckard, Bud Herron, President Don Hewitt, Pastor Warren Kirk, Scott Strietelmeier, Jennifer Villiger, David Webster, Terri Young, Howard Zachariah, Jenn Guthrie (Content Coordinator), & Stephanie Shoaf (Business Coordinator)