Write an essay and win a chance to own a small newspaper in Vermont

including the historic building it's lodged in and all the equipment.


The Hardwick Gazette is a 127-year-old print-only publication with a paid circulation of approximately 2,200 that serves the incomparable Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Those who land on hardwickgazette.com will find not updates on town council meetings and baseball games, but rather the rules of an essay contest — one to find a new owner for the Hardwick Gazette.

Essay contests have been used to sell homes, restaurants and the like. But 70-year-old Ross Connelly , the owner of the Hardwick Gazette, has found no prior instance of a newspaper being sold via essay.

Perhaps that’s because prospective newspaper owners can’t write.

Connelly bought the paper in 1986, though it wasn’t his first in the industry. He attended Howard University in the 1960s and while there worked for civil rights leader the Rev. Walter Fauntroy. Through that connection, he met future D.C. Council Chairman David Clarke, who worked weekend shifts at The Post stuffing newspapers, according to Connelly. “I did it once or twice. That was my first official newspaper job,” says Connelly in an interview with the Erik Wemple Blog.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2016/06/08/owner-of-small-vermont-newspaper-launches-essay-contest-for-new-owner/