With the edition you’re holding in your hands, The Courier-Herald leaps into the world of compact, tabloid-size publication.

Aside from the physical dimension of the newspaper, readers won’t notice a world of change. The same news, letters to the editor and classified ads remain. Once a month we’ll still be taking a closer look at particular items of interest like schools, the local business world, the arts scene or senior issues. We’re taking the same photographs and covering the same events. It’s just in a different format.

There are a couple of changes worth noting, however. The new format allows us to focus more specifically where our readers live. The best example of this will be found in sports; beginning this week, our Enumclaw edition will focus on Hornet athletics, both in Enumclaw and White River. The Bonney Lake-Sumner paper will deal specifically with the Panthers and Spartans.

Fans of the Community Calendar, and we know there are a lot of you, will notice the calendar has become a closer look at the week to come. Previously, the calendar was a gathering place for items that might not occur for weeks down the road.

The change to The Courier-Herald was set in motion more than a year ago when Sound Publishing took ownership of the newspaper, which publishes editions in Enumclaw and Bonney Lake-Sumner. With one exception, all of Sound’s holdings, and there are more than 30 scattered throughout the Puget Sound region, are this size.

We realize this is a dramatic change, but promise our dedication to providing local news will remain as strong as ever.