A brief history of ShenSentinel
Kaylee Lindenmuth, Publisher/Editor/Multimedia Journalist for the Sentinel, photographs the auditorium at the former J.W. Cooper Memorial High School in Shenandoah days before demolition began in 2024.
SHENANDOAH – Ten years ago today, a Shenandoah Valley High School junior launched a Facebook page with an idea: to create a digital news source focused solely on northern Schuylkill County.
The Shenandoah Sentinel began on Dec. 5, 2015 with the launch of the Facebook page, but the idea stretches back a few months.
In late October, 2015 Kaylee Lindenmuth, Publisher/Editor/Multimedia Journalist, devised a mock newspaper heading in Microsoft Word. In an Old English-style font, she typed “Evening Herald,” Shenandoah’s former newspaper.
A screenshot was captured and “Evening Herald” was replaced with a new name, one spawned from the question, “What if Shenandoah had a newspaper today?”
“Shenandoah Sentinel.”
Not quite with the current light blue with a deep outline of dark blue, but the foundation was there. Both screenshots were then sent to a former close contact and, later, she was encouraged to launch the Facebook page.
Next came the website, and the learning curve began. A high school student isn’t exactly a seasoned journalist, after all.
“Learning by doing” was the motto of the Sentinel‘s early days, finding any opportunity to practice or learn new skills.
As a senior at Shenandoah Valley, Lindenmuth spent a week shadowing at WYLN-TV 35 in Hazleton, building the foundation for newsgathering that allowed the Sentinel to blossom into one of east-central Pennsylvania’s most trusted news sources.
As “Upper Schuylkill County’s Community Connection,” The Sentinel has been a consistent presence at municipal meetings in northern Schuylkill and the biggest stories in and around the region, from the demolition of Kaier’s Brewery and a major snow storm in 2017 and the demolition of the Schuylkill Mall in 2018, to the United Wiping Cloth fire and the covering of Graffiti Highway in Centralia in 2020, historic state playoff runs in 2021 by Ashland Little League and the Mahanoy Area Lady Bears in Pittston and Philadelphia, and so much more.
Often, the Sentinel is the only Schuylkill County-based news source, if not the only news source, at events we cover and the Sentinel is the only news source dedicated solely to “north-of-the-mountain” communities. That void led the Sentinel to return from a hiatus in 2022, providing the only in-depth coverage of the sale of Shenandoah’s water authority and the municipal election in Shenandoah in 2023.
The importance of that local coverage is a major reason it continues today.
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