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Citizen readers take the cake at Summerfest

The Summerfest lineup was long for people anxious to grab a slab of the Citizen's massive 100th birthday cake.
Citizen cake
From left, Citizen publisher Colleen Sparrow, Citizen sales associate Gail Wilson, Prince George mayor Lyn Hall, and Colleen Van Mook, executive director of the Downtown Prince George Business Improvement Association, cut the Citizen's 100th anniversary cake next to the maiinstage at Summerfest Sunday afternoon. Crowds took advantage of a warm sunny day to flock to the 23rd annual Summerfest celebration.

The Summerfest lineup was long for people anxious to grab a slab of the Citizen's massive 100th birthday cake.
Cut into about 300 pieces, the cake soon disappeared - one more slice of history to add to the archives of a newspaper which has been serving the community and its readers for 100 years.
Longtime subscriber Don Phillips, a Citizen reader for 43 years, says he couldn't imagine life without his daily newspaper.
"If I want to read the Vancouver Province, I'll buy the Province, but I like reading local news about local people and if you put local stuff on the front page and people's pictures, that is the way you're going to survive," said Philips.
"That article on Les and Carol Waldie (written by Kathy Nadalin) the other day was incredible, very well done. I love Thursday's driving section. My wife does the crosswords and she likes reading the comics and I like the comics. If you try to stay local I think you'll make it."
Maureen and Rudy Rode have been Citizen subscribers for more than five decades, half of the paper's lifetime, and they want to see it last another 100 years. In fact, they wish it would roll off the presses every day of the year so they could read more about the people, places and events, like Summerfest, which touch their lives and make the city a great place to live.
"We miss the Monday paper," said Maureen Rode. "We follow the Blue Jays.
"I think the local news is good but sometimes the pictures are too graphic and the descriptions of tragedies are a little too much."  
They both got a piece of the Citizen cake, made by the Ritz Bakery, and both agreed the wait in line was well worth it. Rudy says he likes the print edition of the Citizen and the convenience of having it in his hands to read whenever and wherever he happens to be.
"I've been here since '51 and I didn't subscribe all that time but I bought it on the newsstand," said Rudy. "I noticed it's getting a lot smaller. Everybody says they get their news from the computers and TV but myself I like reading the newspaper. If I don't catch it right away I can look it over later and read it again. My son lives in Squamish and he reads the paper online, because he has friends here."
Bob and Christine Reid came downtown for Summerfest Sunday afternoon to hear some of the live music on the main stage at Sixth Avenue and George Street, check out the ensemble of actors and singers performing a sneak preview of Judy Russell's production of Mary Poppins on the steps of City Hall and sample some of the delicious offerings of 20 local restaurants at the Canadian Western Bank Taste Pavilion, where crowds were thick all day.
"I like the food court and the music," said Christine Reid. "It gives you a reason to come downtown and see people you don't see often."
As regular weekend visitors to the downtown farmers' market near City Hall the Reids said they miss having the vendors who used to sell their goods and fresh produce in front of the courthouse. They've left downtown to set up a market in the north parking lot of at Pine Centre Mall.
Now in his third decade as a Citizen reader, Bob Reid says he'd like to see bigger papers with more local content and more reporters contributing stories.
"The newspaper is extremely thin every day and they need to have more people writing or people are going to drop off, and I'm sure you've seen the numbers (of subscribers) going down," he said. "We want you to keep your job."
The Reids are aware of the fate of the Citizen's sister papers - the Kamloops Daily News and the Nanaimo Daily News - which have shut down and no longer publish, and hate the thought of not having a Citizen to read each morning it's delivered to their doorstep.
"That would be pathetic," said Bob Reid. "The internet isn't very good and you need local news and you need the photos and everything else to see what's going on in your community. All these places that are losing those newspapers, the people are losing a bunch of their community. It's an important historical record, otherwise, who's going to keep it. They (the Citizen's owners, Glacier Media) have to invest in the community to keep it going."
Gordon Hesselgarth, 53, thinks the Citizen will eventually have to ditch its print edition and become an online-only publication to survive the changing times in which people depend more on social media, smart phones and tablets to get their news.
"I've read the Citizen my whole life and I love it, but I don't think it's looking good for newspapers, they're not going to survive because the young generation gets all their information from laptops and tablets," said Hesselgarth. "I like (the print version) but you should ask a younger person what they think."
Nineteen-year-old Priya Badial was taking a break from staffing the YMCA of Northern B.C. booth and was walking towards the main stage with her friends, Robin Keahey and Hayley Jakubowski, when she was asked for her opinion.
"I've been seeing the Citizen on Instagram and Twitter and I think it's really awesome and it tells about events like this - we should have something like this every single weekend," said Badial. "I like when you link stories on Twitter. Events like these bring the community up and gives you guys more personal stories to be writing about."
Jakubowski, 19, likes the detail the paper goes into in its stories, especially when those stories involve people she knows.
"I think the Citizen does an awesome job, everything is personal and you take the time to interview everybody and see what everybody has to say - it's people stories and everything is super-detailed," said Jakubowski. "I don't have a lot of time to sit down and read the newspaper anymore and it's just nice to have it on my phone."
But Keahey, also 19, is a big fan of the print edition and reads it at the breakfast table.
"I like to catch up on what's happening and it's not on a screen, it's kind of nice to get away from a screen," Keahey said. "The word puzzles get my brain going. When you see a story on a news feed on a screen sometimes you just scroll through it and don't actually read it but in the newspaper it's all in front of you."
All three 19-year-olds were unaware the Citizen's back issues over the past 100 years are available through the Prince George Public Library website, pgpl.ca, and articles can be searched using key words. All but a few years have been digitized in a project funded by the Citizen, which began in 2007.
Sunny skis and 24 C heat Sunday encouraged people to flock downtown. Citizen publisher Colleen Sparrow and managing editor Neil Godbout were on hand to dish out the cake and they heard from a steady stream of people who for the most part liked what the newspaper does to promote the city in its news coverage.
"They said how much they appreciate us and they're happy that we're still around," said Sparrow. "I heard a lot of positive comments on Neil's editorials, they really enjoy his voice.
"It's so nice to see a beautiful summer day. People are smiling and happy to be down here. I love this event and I'm proud to be a sponsor of Summerfest."