New Albany Herald Weekend launches Oct. 1

ALBANY — On Oct. 1, The Albany Herald will introduce its new weekend edition, which will be delivered Sunday mornings.

The weekend Herald, which consolidates the Saturday and Sunday editions, will include more pages, new features and additional color comics, including the return of some favorites that readers have asked for.

Also, The Herald will announce in the debut weekend edition a big holiday shopping spree drawing that readers can register to win.

“We are very excited about having a bigger, better, stronger Sunday newspaper called the weekend edition,” Albany Herald General Manager Ken Boler said. “We’ve listened to our readers and advertisers who wanted stronger and richer content, so the weekend edition just made sense.”

One of the new features that will begin with the Oct. 1 Herald will be a look at local cuisine. It will focus on a popular dish at a metro Albany or Southwest Georgia restaurant, and readers will be able to call in suggestions for the series. Also for foodies, a weekly food page will feature the upcoming week’s lunch and dinner specials at area restaurants.

The Weekend Herald will also include an op-ed page, on which there will be an additional Sunday Squawks column. Dick Yarbrough’s column, which has run on Saturdays, will move to that page, which will include new analysis pieces and Fast Facts, a quick look at topics from the history of Supreme Court nominations to hurricane statistics.

“Features that appeared in the Saturday paper won’t go away,” Editor Jim Hendricks said. “Saturday’s horoscope and history columns will move to Fridays, while the bridge column will move to the new weekend edition.

“The Saturday comics/puzzles page will be included in the expanded Sunday comics/TV section, which is adding a third page of color comics. That third color page will include four strips that our readers told us they wanted back: Peanuts, Blondie, Dennis the Menace and Beetle Bailey. We’re also adding Pearls Before Swine.”

The week-ending stocks listing will be included in the Weekend Herald, which will include a look at business in the week ahead, Bruce Williams’ Smart Money finance column and other business-related news, including the Albany Area Business Portfolio column.

Joining Mary Braswell’s popular Looking Back history column in the SouthView section will be “Ask Grandma,” which will be written by Cynthia Cariche’ Carter. In her weekly column, Carter will apply Grandma’s wisdom to questions she’s been asked, and readers can send in questions to her as well. For pet owners, a column in which veterinarians answer questions about our furry friends is being added.

The Herald’s website, www.albanyherald.com, will continue to be updated with sports results and news events as they happen.

Boler said readers can expect to see more in the future. He noted that SWGAAutos.com will continue to feature great deals on local pre-owned autos in the Weekend Herald’s Classified section and that the monthly SWGA Health Beat will continue to be inserted in home subscribers’ newspapers.

“We will continue introducing products and services into the weekend edition as we move forward,” Boler said.