The online Victoria Gazette, similar in flavor to the hardcopy Victoria Gazette, headlines approximately 25 columnists from the community and contains in their entirety all those items written and reported by Publisher-Editor-Owner Sue Orsen.
          The Victoria Gazette first hit the streets in June of 1979 as a stapled flyer on 8 1/2" by 11" paper from an out-of-town entrepreneur and renovator of old buildings in downtown Victoria, Minnesota.  Mainly the Gazette promoted and advertised his new businesses in the old Creamery, Feedmill, Barber Shop, Gas Station, and Bank Building.  None of the businesses survived more than two years ... except the Gazette.
          Sue Orsen, a resident of Victoria with a husband and two young children, had immediately begun writing and submitting news articles to the Victoria Gazette, voluntarily, and getting her first feature story on the front page in "Issue Number 5" of 1979.
           In 1980 Sue assumed the position of editor of the Victoria Gazette and turned it into a newspaper as she took on full responsibility including getting the news, writing, reporting, calling on leaders in the community to be her columnists, solicitation of advertising and setting rates, answering the phone, layout, design, getting to the printers, paying the bills -- everything to keep it alive.   In 1982 Sue assumed the debt and became the owner and publisher of the Victoria Gazette and acquired formal responsibility for its future as well as its present.
          Columnists who contribute to the Gazette today come from the many Victoria organizations, churches, community leaders, and include other talented residents and friends of the Gazette.  The news of each and every Victoria City Council meeting has been reported personally by Editor Sue since 1981.  It fills the two-page centerfold of the Gazette each month under the heading, "The Scoop at City Hall" and often consumes additional pages and space. 
          Daughter Jenny has been drawing "cartoons" for the Gazette since the beginning.  Letters to the editor continue to be numerous.  The Gazette remains a "love affair with news and paper" for Editor Sue as the newspaper celebrated its 25th anniversary in the Spring of 2004.  Did she start the Gazette?  Replied husband Allan, "Technically, no.  Essentially, yes."

Sue@VictoriaGazette.com