Dennis McNabb, The Mountain Times
Whether you live on the mountain or just frequent the area, you’ll be familiar with the fact that cell phone coverage can sometimes be inconsistent. Prior to the cell phone age, when we still took note of important addresses and phone numbers, it wasn’t such an issue. But nowadays, we rely so heavily on technology that we can become lost without it. It’s safe to say that, confronted with the challenge, many of us would fail to recollect the numbers of our closest friends, our folks, and even our spouses, let alone our favorite local businesses. That is why, in a time when print media is incorrectly said to be “dying,” we here at The Mountain Times have taken up the gauntlet and printed a brand new business directory for the Mt. Hood Community.
When Matt Nelson initially purchased The Mountain Times in 2023, he took it upon himself to join Peggy Wallace (local resident and employee for the paper) in visiting many of the local businesses, introducing himself, getting a feel for the community, and gaining some perspective regarding where its surpluses and deficits lie. One of the most frequent requests he received was to publish a new directory. There hadn’t been one published since 2020 and many businesses had since come and gone. It was time for someone to rectify that situation and Matt set his team straight to work.
First, we hired and dedicated a sales associate to work with the local community. Next we contacted the previous publisher of the phone book in order to retrieve their source files (the master list used to compile the last phone book) but found that unfortunately those files had been erased and were no longer available. Starting almost completely from scratch then, we purchased a service broker’s list, cross-checked it with the old book published in 2020, and hand-typed every single listing into Google to confirm its veracity. Finally, we sent out social media blasts to notify businesses of our plans and encourage them to send in their information to be included.
Assembling all of these pieces and parts was painstaking, time-consuming work. There were several setbacks and delays (due to ice storms, power outages, etc.), but at long last, they are here! In fact, everyone who receives the Mountain Times should already have one in their hands. 10,000 copies were published and mailed out with the extras delivered to our drop points around the area. If for some reason you didn’t receive a copy, you should still be able to find one at a variety of local businesses on the mountain. They are free of charge!
We chose to only include businesses (no personal numbers) and list just the contact information: business name, phone number, and city, but no street addresses. This streamlined the layout and made the book less cumbersome, easier to use and to carry. However, each entry is still listed twice: once alphabetically and once based on category. We hope this will make for a valuable resource, providing you with all the information you need at the simple flip of a page.
We would like to thank all of the businesses who participated and helped to bring this project to fruition. We couldn’t have done it without you! And so far, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. If all goes according to plan, we hope to publish a new directory every year going forward as long as the demand is there.
Next time you find yourself driving through any of our lovely communities, and your phone data starts acting up, don’t forget to use the new Mt. Hood Business Directory: quick, easy, and always available!