By KATIE MCDOWELL / Managing Editor

What makes a community newspaper great?

Lots of community news!

Luckily, Shelby County is brimming over with fantastic stories. However, we only have five writers/editors on our staff, so we rely on a network of community columnists to help us find and write those stories.

In the coming months, we hope to significantly expand our number of community columnists. We know there are more great stories out there waiting to be told, and we don’t want to miss them.

Some of my favorite stories recently printed in the Shelby County Reporter were written by our columnists. Helena columnist Laura Brookhart recently wrote about a pair of book-loving brothers. One of the brothers, Canaan, has read the most books of any student at Briarwood Christian School, where he is a student.

Calera columnist Mollie Brown featured the Field of Angels, a baseball team for special needs kids, in a recent column. Columbiana columnist Phoebe Donald Robinson went behind the scenes at Columbiana City Hall and introduced readers to the people who keep the city running.

Our community columnists are responsible for finding and writing their own stories each week, and we pay for all stories and photos.

The best columnists are plugged into the community. They know what’s going on at the library, churches, schools and businesses.

We’re looking for columnists in the following cities and neighborhoods: Mt Laurel, Indian Springs, Harpersville, Wilsonville, Vincent, Hoover, Greystone, Inverness and Riverchase.

This is where you come in. If you’re interested in writing for us or want to recommend a friend, please contact me at Katie.mcdowell@shelbycountyreporter.com.

Feel free to send ideas for other areas that need community columnists as well.

Finally, while we have columnists for many of the larger cities in the county, we’d be happy to have more, especially for Pelham, Alabaster and Chelsea.

Interested applicants must have access to email and reliable transportation and know how to type. They also will need to write a sample story that I will assign.

I hope you’ll join us in sharing all of the compelling, exciting, positive news that Shelby County has to offer.

Katie McDowell is the Shelby County Reporter managing editor. She can be reached at katie.mcdowell@shelbycountyreporter.com.