Today The Mount Airy News kicks off a two-day birthday celebration marking 129 years of service to Mount Airy and Surry County.

Tonight The News will be hosting a Chamber Business After Hours, with Greater Mount Airy Chamber of Commerce officials, members and community business people gathering for a time of social interaction and newspaper tours.

Tomorrow, The News opens its doors from 3 to 6 p.m. to the entire community for a giant birthday celebration, complete with punch, cake and cookies, give-aways and door prizes.

As part of the festivities, WIFM radio will be broadcasting live from The News office, giving away additional prizes, including a weekend in Gatlinburg, Tenn.

“Counting all of our employees and newspaper delivery personnel, The Mount Airy News enlists the aid of a little over 90 local people dedicated to producing and delivering a high quality locally oriented newspaper every day of the week, 365 days a year,” said Publisher Gary Lawrence.

“Those 90 highly dedicated people are your friends and neighbors. They buy groceries, automobiles, homes and numerous other local goods and services. I felt the time had come when they should celebrate their efforts with the community. So, we’re throwing a party, and I invite everyone in the community to come join us in that celebration.

“One hundred and twenty-nine years is something to be proud of, but it is a tribute to the community as much as to the resolve of all the people who have worked here over the years. I hope to see a lot of local people come by for some fun on Friday,” he said.

The Mount Airy News has been a part of life in Mount Airy and Surry County since the newspaper’s founding in 1880, then under the name The Yadkin Valley News.

In fact, The News may be the oldest continuously operated business in Mount Airy, starting as a weekly publication just 15 years after the Civil War concluded. Over those decades, the newspaper grew to publish twice a week, then three times each week, and eventually became a five-day-a-week daily.

In more recent years, the newspaper added a sixth, and then a seventh, day of publication and now serves its readers seven days a week, every single day of the year.

Like most business that have been around for nearly 130 years, The Mount Airy News has undergone some changes, including a few in ownership.

Heartland Publications, a firm which focuses on community newspapers, purchased The Mount Airy News and a number of other papers in the region in 2007. In the summer of that year, Lawrence, the company’s chief operating officer, moved to Mount Airy and was named publisher of The Mount Airy News.

Since Lawrence became publisher, The News has shifted back to its mission of being true community newspaper.

That means most of its content is about people and events in Mount Airy and Surry County, with local stories not only the exclusive focus of the front page, but dominating its entire content. Generally The News features a front page package of five local stories and several local pictures, along with additional Mount Airy and Surry County stories and photos inside.

The editorial page generally features locally focused editorials, most days contains at least one staff-written column, and letters to the editor from local readers. In addition, the newspaper puts a premium on trying to highlight some of the positive accomplishments of area residents, officials and businesses through its weekly Thumbs Up column.

The staff has also grown, as The Mount Airy News became the southern division headquarters for Heartland, which has helped pump additional dollars into the local economy. That designation means that vendors and others hoping to do business with any of Heartland’s publications often visit Mount Airy.

The company probably generates at least 100 visitor nights a year at local lodges, and those visits, as well as regional and company-wide meetings sometimes held in Mount Airy, generate additional dollars in the local economy.

The News also is home to more than five dozen employees, and utilizes 29 local contract carriers every day, pumping more than $2 million into the local economy through payroll and vendor payments. In addition to property taxes paid to the city and county, The News has invested nearly $200,000 in capital improvements inside the building and out, including landscaping and parking lot repairs to enhance the appearance of the facility.

The Mount Airy News is also somewhat of a regional printing hub, with more than 10 newspapers and other products being printed here, including tri-weekly Elkin Tribune and the weekly newspapers The Stokes News, The Pilot, The Carroll News, The Yadkin Ripple, The Weekly Independent and the twice-a-week newspaper The Jefferson Post.

Contact John Peters at jpeters@mtairynews.com or 719-1931.