TEMPLE — There’s mention of snowfall amounts, scholarship recipients and other community news in the Temple Times.

There’re also many items explaining town business such as property taxes, road repairs and news from the town’s school board director.

Believing people need to be informed to make wise decisions, Jo Josephson creates a four-page newsletter that’s mailed to every home in Temple three times a year.

It started when former Selectman Robert Stevens asked Josephson to create a town newsletter similar to one used in New Portland, she said. That was in 2001.

Stevens said he doesn’t remember all the details but the board wanted to get more information about the town’s recycling program to residents.

After researching other newsletters, Josephson brought a proposal before the board and they gave her a budget for printing, mailings and a stipend for her work.

Voters have approved the money every year since, said First Selectman Kathleen Lynch, a retired teacher who proofreads the newsletter.

When voters come to meetings there tends to be few questions, especially on subjects Josephson has discussed in the newsletter, Lynch said.

“She’s worked very hard to let people know the issues before voting,” she said.

The newsletter is also about the “small happenings that won’t make the daily newspapers,” she said. For the community of 564 residents at one end of Route 43, the newsletter helps keep residents connected, Lynch said.

When she moved here in the late 1960s there was a Good Neighbor Club, Slim Hodgkins’ store and the volunteer fire department where everyone got together and shared information. The first two are now gone, the newsletter fills some of the void.

“You hear people talking about something in there,” she said.

Shortly after Labor Day, the winter-fall issue goes to Wilton Printing Warehouse where 275 copies are printed, Josephson said. She takes them to the Temple Post Office and a copy is delivered by the mail carrier to every house with a Temple address. Other copies are left at the Town Office.

Costs for the town were $1,011 this year, she said. Three printings were $210, postage $126, and Josephson’s work $675.

The retired journalist has written several reports, guides and handbooks, worked for the Morning Sentinel, Livermore Falls Advertiser and other media, and served as a communications specialist for the Maine Municipal Association for 10 years. For the latter, she produced a monthly magazine with features from Maine towns.

After getting involved with the town’s newsletter, she also developed and conducted workshops on “Getting the Word Out: Municipal Newsletters and Town Reports” and “Working With the Press” through her MMA work. Similar workshops were offered locally through her work at Western Maine Alliance with support from MMA.

She taught them to write headlines and short pieces that quickly get to the point. She showed them how to hone a 38-word sentence down to eight words presenting a clear, concise and colorful piece of information that makes for fast and easy reading, she said.

As a former biology teacher who taught in the Bronx, New York City, and in Ghana during a stint in the Peace Corps, she’s drawn to the facts and figures of town business.

A reporter’s job is to make a detailed piece of information clear and understandable for the reader, she said.

Yet she also wants to focus on people and foster community.

Retired individuals can provide an opportunity for other towns to do a newsletter even without the reporter experience.

“I learned on the job,” she said.

[email protected]