Sometimes, I journal to process major life events. I’ve lived in a lot of places worth journaling about and my latest move is no exception. I’ve been in Ouray for six weeks now and I’m struck by the similarities to a mountain village in Japan where I taught English for three years after college.

Kosuge Village (pronounced co-suegay) is tucked in a steep river valley at the headwaters of one of Tokyo’s major drinking water tributaries in Yamanashi Prefecture, home of Mt.

Fuji. Kosuge, population 700, is known for many things: waterfalls, wildlife (including bears), canyoning and a tree canopy ropes course, winding mountain passes that attract street drifters from Tokyo and hillside trails with views that make the settlement look like a doll town.

What I appreciated most was the “onsen,” the hot springs. Nothing takes the stress off like sweating it out and steeping in the cool air with tranquil views of misty clouds washing over the peaks above.

Yet beyond the hot springs, Ouray, Colorado, is scratching a deeper alpine nature itch I’ve felt since leaving my elementary school days in Anchorage, Alaska.

I’m still not sure how I lucked out enough to end up here. I’m not a tourist. I come as an alumnus of Report for America, a program doing incredible work to transform local journalism across the country by supporting under- covered beats and communities.

As an RFA corps member, I most recently worked for The Spokesman-Review, a legacy newspaper in Spokane, Washington, a city that is also, unfortunately, no stranger to devastating wildfire.

As the rural counties reporter, I covered the Inland Northwest region surrounding Spokane in Eastern Washington and the Idaho Panhandle. Many of these counties were on the verge of becoming news deserts.

Yet there were important stories to tell: political extremism, intense divisions within local political parties, communities struggling to survive and redefine themselves after bygone heydays of agriculture, logging and mining; Native American tribes asserting their sovereignty and interests in environmental and cultural issues; and of course fires and other emergencies.

Now, I’ve joined the Plaindealer as the government accountability reporter.

This is a position the Plaindealer can afford thanks in large part to Report for America and local supporters. My predecessor, Lia Salvatierra, moved on to another RFA position in Kentucky and the editors decided to make her position a permanent, full-time reporter job, which I was hired to do. The premise behind RFA is that the nonprofit will support local newsrooms with matching grant funding that will phase down over a few years with the hope that readers will step up to support local news and the position will become self-sufficient.

The success of this model in Ouray County is that the Plaindealer now has two full-time reporters (in addition to the more-than-full-time work put in by co-publishers, co-editors and regular reporters Erin McIntyre and Mike Wiggins).

I’m honored to fill this role as part of this scrappy newspaper that is actually growing while small town news is shrinking, if not completely dying, in other places.

I join my colleague, Chart Riggall, a current RFA corps member covering public lands and the environment. Contributions to the Plaindealer’s RFA-sponsored fund can support both of our positions, and they’re tax-deductible.

When I think about the importance of journalism, specifically local government reporting, I like to remind myself of the statistic that news deserts lead to $1.1 billion in higher borrowing costs for local governments, according to studies by Rebuild Local News and the University of Illinois Chicago. Lenders tend to charge higher interest rates when journalists aren’t monitoring local officials because risks of wasteful spending and corruption increase. Those costs are then borne by taxpayers.

That’s another reason why I’m so impressed with what the Plaindealer has done to keep local journalism alive in a county with a population of 5,000.

“Plaindealer,” I’m told, is not a reference to agriculture, but a term for someone who conducts themselves straightforwardly and honestly, who “deals plainly” — something I will always strive to do.

The traditional craft of “newspapering,” as my first editor, Don Rush, would say in his weekly “Don’t Rush Me” column at the Oxford Leader in Oxford, Michigan, is hard, often unglamorous work.

The night before I was supposed to start work, I walked over to 4J+1+1 RV Park to investigate reports of a mudslide over Oak Street. On my first day, I surveyed the devastation from the debris flows along Cutler Creek up Blue Tip Drive in Ponderosa Village.

A week later I was getting my hands dirty with ink smears at 10 p.m. after the printer’s folding machine malfunctioned and more than 1,000 papers needed to be folded in order to be mailed to our subscribers. It just needed to be done and they were folded with love. Handling the physical paper like that made me feel connected to the Plaindealer’s 149-year-old tradition.

So, it’s nice to meet you, dear reader. I’m glad to be here to help tell the story of Ouray County. See you around town or on the trail.

Email James Hanlon at james@ouraynews. com.