What happened to Thurston organizations?

I was perplexed by the special section in a recent edition of The Olympian titled “South Sound Together.” In it, we heard from 24 distinguished leaders of the “South Sound community,” none of whom represented readers in Olympia, Tumwater, Lacey or anywhere south of the Pierce County line.

This seems like a strange message to Olympian readers — especially since it was written by the publisher of the Tacoma News Tribune, which essentially colonized The Olympian a decade ago. His message recognizes banking officials, university presidents, parks administrators, port officials and others in Pierce County, but none south of the Nisqually River.

I like Tacoma and applaud Pierce County for its many civic organizations, but let’s not pretend they represent the entire South Sound community — together.

This story was originally published March 23, 2016 at 8:25 AM with the headline "What happened to Thurston organizations?."