Our thoughts are with our publishing colleagues in Newtown, Connecticut

The quiet New England town of Newtown, Connecticut where that heartbreaking tragedy occurred last Friday – the shooting rampage that took the lives of 20 elementary schoochildren among a total death toll of 28 – is home to a tight-knit publishing company, Taunton Press, that publishes Fine Homebuilding, Fine Woodworking, Fine Gardening, Green Building Advisor, and other “shelter” publications.

If you are a Canadian contractor, you have doubtless read many of those publications at one time or another. Here at Canadian Contractor, in our early years, we had an agreement with Taunton Press to publish extracts from Fine Homebuilding in our pages. So we got to know a few of the key people at Taunton Press and have the greatest respect for the work they do. Newtown has just 30,000 residents, 60 miles north of New York City.

I don’t need to write much more to bring it home. It will be evident to everyone who thinks about it, what tough times lie ahead for the people of Newtown, including our industry trade press colleagues down there. It was the second-worst school shooting in the history of the United States. All we can do at this point is to keep these families, this community, in our hearts.