Behind the Scenes: Trisha tackles your most asked questions

(Hi Mrs. Mayer! Let’s get coffee!)

We receive phone calls all the time from people asking how to pay for subscriptions, obituaries and classified ads; those seem to be the areas with the most confusion.

The answer is actually pretty simple: If you place a classified ad online, you are able to pay for said ad on the website.

For everything else, you need to call or visit the office. We take cash, checks and credit cards.

We’ve tried to get set up on the website so people can pay for obituaries and subscriptions online, too. Details are boring (and to be honest, I wasn’t really paying attention), but the answer we got from our tech guy was essentially: No, you can’t do that.

Hey though, to distract you from the fact that I don’t have a good reason for why we can’t, let me tell you what you can submit that is free of charge!

1. Anniversary and birth announcements. They follow a certain format; birth announcements do not include a photograph, although anniversary announcements do. (Email me for more info: trishaw@gorgenews.com.)

2. Death and service notices. These also follow a certain format; if you want to add a photo, it’s $25. (Also me.)

3. $500 or less classified ads. One item under $500, runs for a week and is completely free! There is a maximum line amount, however. (Email LisaAnn Kawachi, classifieds@gorgenews.com.)

4. Event and entertainment listings. These run as space allows, and some submissions aren’t applicable. (I do events; contact Jacob Bertram, jacobb@gorgenews.com, for entertainment listing information.)

Moving on to subscriptions:

When you pay for a print subscription, you automatically get access to the newspaper, in its entirety, online on our website. (Another freebie!) It’s easy to sign up online; just click the Renew/Subscribe button on the top left of our home screen, columbiagorgenews.com. You’ll need your subscription number, which you can find on your newspaper’s mailing label: Your subscription number is the first five digits on the third line (the last eight, broken up by dashes, is your expiration date). If you need help sorting that out, feel free to give any of us a call. Our contact information is always listed on page A4, and is also available on our website.

Chelsea Marr, our publisher and owner, is doing a cool thing right now where anyone with a subscription can gift a subscription to someone who, for whatever reason, does not get our newspaper. You can give it to anyone. For free!

As Chelsea wrote in an April column: “If you are a current subscriber, you can now give a free subscription to a friend, neighbor or family member who does not currently subscribe at no cost to yourself.

“The subscription is free for an entire year … So what’s the catch? The only qualification is that they are not a current subscriber to Columbia Gorge News. That’s it.”

For more information or to give a gift subscription, send us the name, address, email and phone number of the person you wish to give a free subscription; remember to include your own name and contact information as well. We’ll send a letter to the new subscriber announcing the gift on your behalf.

Subscriptions should be sent to the email subscribe@gorgenews.com, or leave a voicemail so we can return your call 541-386-1234 ext. 100.

This column is a bit longer than I’d anticipated, but I have one more thing to mention: Sometimes, papers don’t get delivered to certain mailboxes. And that is not on purpose.

All of our subscriptions are delivered via the post office, and sometimes a box is missed. We know because we get phone calls every time this happens and there have been a few who are highly disgruntled, as if it were a calculated snub. Sometimes it’s an honest mistake by a mail carrier. Sometimes it’s because subscriptions have lapsed. When you don’t receive a paper, please call us — we can help get you sorted out, and will even run one out to you personally. But don’t get mad at us. There are sometimes circumstances beyond our control.

Oh, hey, I just remembered one more thing: When you call, leave a message! Again, small staff, doing our best, we will call you as soon as we can (because no joke, your calls are important to us) — but we need to know how to get a hold of you. And more importantly, that you called in the first place. Leave your name, repeat your number twice, and tell us the reason for your call so we know how to direct it.