For the last year, I’ve written this weekly column for Noozhawk.

That fact may seem unremarkable. A local resident writes for a local news organization serving a local community. Arrangements like that have existed for generations.

Yet the older I get, the more remarkable the arrangement seems.

My great-great-grandfather, Thomas Casbon, struggled as a farmer in Indiana. The family lived close to the land and often close to the margins.

They had plenty of food from the farm but very little cash. Life demanded hard work, thrift and perseverance.

Family stories tell of one remarkable journey. After reading in his local newspaper that Abraham Lincoln’s funeral train would pass near Chicago following the president’s assassination in April 1865, Thomas rode horseback for an entire day to pay his respects.

The experience stayed with him.

Lincoln represented something larger than politics. He embodied the belief that ordinary citizens had a stake in the American experiment.

The Casbons were not wealthy people. Far from it.

Yet despite the demands of farm life and the scarcity of cash, there was always money for one thing: the local newspaper.

Thomas had learned the value of paying attention.

Years later, my grandfather carried on the habit. Each morning he unfolded the local newspaper at the kitchen table. He followed local events, knew the names of candidates seeking political office, and rarely missed an election.

He would never have thought of himself as a guardian of democracy. He was simply a farmer who believed it was his responsibility to stay informed about the world beyond his fields.

Looking back, I realize he understood something I am only now beginning to fully appreciate:

Citizenship is a habit.

Democracy is not something that comes alive every four years. It is a daily practice.

Benjamin Franklin understood this when he argued that liberty depends on an informed citizenry.

Democracy, despite our tendency to view it through a national lens, does not begin in Washington.

It begins at home.

It begins in city council chambers, school board meetings, county offices, nonprofit organizations, and countless other places where citizens gather to shape the future of their communities.

Most important, it begins wherever someone is paying attention.

That is where local journalism enters the story.

Today, Noozhawk serves that role on the Central Coast. Its professional reporters cover the issues and institutions that shape the place we call home. It remains locally owned, independently operated, and committed to providing local news without a paywall.

In an age when so much information arrives from somewhere else, local journalism remains rooted in everyday reality.

Housing.

Water.

Wildfire preparedness.

Public safety.

Education.

Economic development.

Many of the decisions affecting our daily lives are made much closer to home than we often imagine.

Who won the school board election?

What happened at the county Board of Supervisors meeting?

Why was a housing project approved or rejected?

What challenges are our schools facing?

These stories rarely make national headlines. Yet they often have a greater impact on our daily lives than events unfolding thousands of miles away.

Journalist Molly Ivins once observed that there is nothing so powerful as citizens armed with information.

I believe she was right.

People cannot participate in civic life if they do not know what is happening in civic life.

As I grow older, I find myself increasingly appreciative of institutions that quietly strengthen the fabric of a community. Most of us seldom notice them. We simply benefit from the work they do.

Local journalism is one of those institutions.

In many ways, it is like a bridge. We rarely think about a bridge while it is carrying us safely where we need to go. We notice it only when it is no longer there.

Not because journalism is perfect. No institution is.

But because communities need independent observers whose job is to ask questions, gather facts, challenge assumptions, and shine light into places where darkness might otherwise prove more convenient.

That is one reason I support Noozhawk.

More important, it is why I read it.

When I think about Thomas reading his newspaper on an Indiana farm, I am reminded that informed citizenship has never been glamorous. It is simply the steady work of staying engaged with the community around us.

This year, Noozhawk marks 19 years of helping our community do exactly that.

When I think about Thomas riding horseback to honor Abraham Lincoln, I doubt he imagined that 1½ centuries later his great-great-grandson would be writing for a digital news organization on California’s Central Coast.

The technology has changed.

The responsibility has not.

Democracy still depends upon citizens who care enough to know what is happening around them.

It still depends upon people willing to pay attention.

And it still depends upon someone willing to report the news.

Different century.

Different medium.

Same democratic habit.