Today wraps up the twenty fifth year of The Outdoor Wire. Since our bi-weekly beginning, we’ve grown into the Outdoor Wire Digital Network. Those early days of scrounging around for 10-12 news items per week are definitely in the rearview mirror. We passed 25,000 news items distributed in 2025 this week. Things have definitely changed.

We’re going into this holiday hiatus with an even deeper appreciation for you and the trust you’ve placed in us. We haven’t been perfect, but if today’s edition gets to your mailbox, we will have gone a quarter-century without ever missing an edition.

On the whole, it’s been a great ride. But today’s year-end edition has one thing in common with our last edition for 2000. We’ve all suffered loss. Many of us have lost classmates, childhood friends, relatives and professional colleagues. People with whom we’ve shared good and bad times. All those folks my friend cowboy crooner Sheriff Jim Wilson says have “stepped on a rainbow” will be missed.

But I’ll also be missing friends who are exploring a whole new world: retirement. They are experienced business and outdoors types, but they’re the “retirees rookie class of 2026.” Hope they do as well in retirement. They have earned the right. Like our friends walking on rainbows, they’ll stick in our memories (even after we’ve stopped calling each other).

2026 will see more of the young professionals who came into the industry in 2000 continue into leadership roles. Each time one of them calls and asks about a management situation, a job offer or a personal challenge, I’m reminded that the folks who fill our shoes, personally and professionally, are really what make up our personal legacies.

Enough sad stuff. Time to look ahead…optimistically.

In 2026, we’ll be celebrating the nation’s biggest birthday - ever.

The United States of America turns 250 this year, and despite the creaks, cracks and fractious nature we sometimes display, we’re still here. We should be able to put our differences behind us and have an extended celebration. Just because we have the right to disagree on virtually anything doesn’t mean we can’t agree on this one thing.

The great social experiment that is the United States of America has lasted through many dire situations and we need to put aside differences long enough to have a bang-up birthday celebration.

If you’re nervous about the future, here’s a reassurance: we’ve survived natural disasters, wars (civil and otherwise), and political sea changes that would make the saltiest sailor seasick.

We’ll survive artificial intelligence, too, if we remember the critical difference between us and the machines: machines design for efficiency, people design for purpose.

If we get -and keep- our priorities straight, the machines will be the helpers that keep us moving forward. Otherwise, we’ll be dealing with the core problem of all computers: garbage in equals garbage out.

On a personal note, I’m really looking forward to 2026. Not because I have some crystal ball seeing a perfect future ahead. Because, I am, as I have been for nearly 60 years, still a reporter.

That’s a long time to keep asking the same seven basic questions, even in a myriad of circumstances. And I’m still recording answers using the same twenty-six characters I practiced making on paper in first grade. May have moved from pen and paper to typewriters (manual and electric), then computers. Today A/I to instantly transcribes my interviews.

Young people don’t believe me when I tell how we had to process film and transmit images to editors. Today, I can record interviews, transcribe them, attach images and distribute the finished product all from my phone. And that could be words and images or even live video.

When I started in television, “going live” meant a remote production truck with a full production crew. When CNN first started using “fly packs” to transmit remotely via satellite, we brought global stories to the world in real-time.

It’s fair to say we changed the world, although it’s inaccurate, or at least premature, to say it was for the better. Through it all, we never thought of ourselves as anything but journalists.

The tools have changed, but our goal never has wavered: to answer the same seven questions without adding nuance, spin or interpretation.

Today, many of the news organizations where I learned and practiced journalism seem to have focused on the unnecessary additives and lost sight of their jobs: answering seven basic questions.

Going into 2026, I can’t promise world peace, a chicken in every pot, or for every pot to have a window to throw it out of. Prognostication has never been my strong suit.

But I can tell you that each of us at The Outdoor Wire Digital Network appreciate you. We value your readership, cherish our friendships, and realize that you are why we do what we do.

As I go into our twenty-fifth holiday hiatus, I’m looking forward to spending time with family and celebrating the holidays. But I’ll also be offering up prayers of thanks for each of you.

Have a blessed holiday season, and know we’re still keeping an eye out on what’s happening, even though we’re taking a needed break. When we reappear in your inbox on Monday, January 5, 2026 we’ll start another year based on the promise I made a quarter century ago: we’ll keep you posted.

God bless you all.

— Jim Shepherd