This week, I’m dashing off this letter to Beachcomber readers — my favorite group of people on Vashon — because I’ve run out of road to write a proper editorial.

It’s noon on Tuesday morning now, and we’re going to press, so what you see is what you get: a love letter to Vashon.

This weekend, I did what a lot of you did, running (okay, sometimes strolling) from place to place at Vashon’s magnificent Strawberry Festival. I took a lot of photos, chatted with a lot of islanders, smiled at a lot of kids, and went home fully recognizing the enormity of the task of writing about it.

How to sum up something so big, in such a small town? The Strawberry Festival Parade, in particular, expresses to me the essence of the best things about our island home: our love of cosplay and music, our exuberant sense of fun, the work of our vibrant nonprofit community, and our sense of social justice and service to others.

It’s a pleasure to be the editor of the local newspaper of such a place — even though I am exhausted each week keeping up with everything that happens in our town. It’s been about a year now that I have been the sole staff member in The Beachcomber’s newsroom.

Throughout the year, and in recent weeks, I’ve received lots of excellent help, from my former mentors Susan Riemer and Leslie Brown, our summer intern Savannah Butcher, and many others who have sometimes jumped in to help.

But pulling together all the news and opinion content for a newspaper — even a small one, like ours — is still a pretty daunting task to do on a weekly basis.

But a great town deserves a great newspaper, and so I keep trying.

This week, you’ll find stories pertaining to the Aug. 1 election, about a levy measure to renew the Veterans, Seniors & Human Services Levy. This levy has made possible so much important work on Vashon — work that pertains directly to providing services and programs for island veterans, seniors, and other vulnerable populations. I’m voting yes to renew it, and I hope you will too.

If you’re unsure of the backgrounds of the four school board candidates who are facing off in the primary to advance to November’s general election, have no fear. I talked to all the candidates, and somehow managed to wrangle my article about them down to around 2,000 words. It’s a lot to read. But the school board has a lot of work to do, and you should be informed, as voters. It’s important.

Last week, I editorialized, in the voice of The Beachcomber representing the values of our community, that islanders should vote yes to Vashon Island Fire & Rescue’s levy lid lift to protect our community and provide our fire district — which has seen great reform and revitalization under the leadership of Chief Matt Vinci — with the equipment and staff it needs to do its life-affirming work in our community.

When you vote, vote for Vashon. Let compassion, care, and community-mindedness inform your votes.

Last week marked my 25th Strawberry Festival on Vashon — I’ve lived here that long now. And I’m well aware that time span still marks me as a newcomer in some folks’ estimation.

But I’ve raised my children here, who are now grown and gone — but somehow, a part of them will always be island kids.

I’ve seen new neighbors come and go.

I’ve ridden back and forth on the ferry way, way too many times. I’d rather be here most of the time.

I’ve written hundreds of news stories about this town and hope I can write hundreds more.

But for now, I’ll close this rambling letter, with thanks again to you, for reading and caring about our town, too.

And voting. Thank you for voting.

— Elizabeth Shepherd, Editor