Bay St. Louis residents welcome first post-Katrina edition of Sea Coast Echo

Copies of the first post-Katrina edition of the Sea Coast Echo (Bay St. Louis) were in good hands. The editor and publisher delivered them himself: "I had people come up and cry, absolutely cry, just because I'm handing them a paper," Randy Ponder said. "That's how important this newspaper is to these people. It's a morale booster. It shows them that, yeah, we've been down, but we're going to come back. Look! Here's our paper right here. It meant a lot to them.” The editor’s home became the newspaper office and even a home for some of his employees.