EastIdahoNews.com expands to Pocatello, planning on new growth in 2021 - East Idaho News
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EastIdahoNews.com expands to Pocatello, planning on new growth in 2021

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IDAHO FALLS — After a year of unprecedented growth, EastIdahoNews.com is expanding and opening our first remote office in Pocatello.

Since our launch in 2015, our primary coverage area has been in Idaho Falls and northward to the Upper Valley. But starting this month, we have dedicated reporters able to report the news from the Utah border all the way to the Montana border.

We have hired two additional staff members and grown our network of part-time and freelance writers.

New Staff

Kalama Hines

Our newest hire is Kalama Hines, a native Hawaiian, who started his journalism career covering city government at the Pleasanton Weekly, a newspaper in California. Most recently he worked for SFBay, a digital news startup in California’s Bay Area, where he covered professional sports – specifically the Oakland A’s.

Hines fell in love with eastern Idaho during a family trip through Yellowstone National Park when he was a child. His family had flown from Hawaii to California and they were driving toward the park when Kalama’s brother got very sick. The family stopped in Pocatello for several days until the illness passed.

“While we were there, I went around with my mom and my dad to check out the town, and the experience stuck,” Kalama says. “Since then it’s always been on my dartboard of destinations to live.”

As our new Pocatello reporter, Kalama will cover everything from city government and local schools to entertainment and agriculture. Our hope is Kalama and EastIdahoNews.com will become a household name in the Gate City.

Kalama lives in Pocatello with his wife Jennifer and two children, Kealii and Lilialanaikawai.

To contact Kalama with story ideas and tips, call or text (208) 380-8484 or email kalama@eastidahonews.com.

Kim Stockton

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Kim Stockton

One of the latest additions to EastIdahoNews.com is Kim Stockton, a graphic designer who grew up in Idaho Falls. For the past 11 years, Kim worked as a graphic designer for Riverbend Communications creating graphics and marketing materials for various brands, events, and business campaigns/promotions.

She joins EastIdahoNews.com as our creative director. Kim builds and traffics digital advertisements and manages our obituary, announcements, and community calendar pages.

Kim loves animals, especially her dog, Indie, and her little backyard dinosaurs (chickens). She aspires to have an alpaca farm to go along with all the animals she may acquire along the way. Kim is a certified master gardener and plant enthusiast with a deep love for nature and gardens.

To contact Kim, email kim@eastidahonews.com.

Freelancers

Our team of freelancers continues to expand. We recently invited Jeannette Boner to join the ranks. She most recently was the editor at Teton Valley News in Driggs. Her freelance beat focuses on the Teton Valley and western Wyoming.

Grace Hansen continues to freelance courtroom stories for us from Idaho Falls. Sugar City resident Adam Forsgren writes about entertainment throughout eastern Idaho, and Silas Wright lives in Rexburg and writes about local government.

Rexburg native Bill Schiess remains our longtime outdoor columnist and was last year was joined by St. Anthony resident Lance Ellis, who writes a popular gardening column during the spring and summer months.

We are looking for more talented freelancer reporters and columnists to join us. If you are interested, send me a message at nate@eastidahonews.com.

The biggest year yet at EastIdahoNews.com

In 2020, EastIdahoNews.com experienced tremendous growth in our audience. We ended 2020 with 117 million pageviews and a daily audience of several hundred thousand people.

More people than ever downloaded our free mobile app and we hit major milestones on social media with 117,000 followers on Facebook and 168,000 subscribers on our Youtube channel. (If you haven’t followed or subscribed, you can do it here).

EastIdahoNews.com is now among the most read and watched news organizations in the Gem State, and we plan to continue growing in 2021.

We are extremely grateful to you and our advertisers who continue supporting local journalism. We could not do this without you.

As always, if you have news tips please email us at news@eastidahonews.com.

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