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Still the Best
FROM THE PUBLISHER
For the past twenty-six years,
Rhode Island Monthly has made it
our mission to celebrate the Best
of Rhode Island with revelry and
respect. It is not just what our
editors have uncovered during
our trip around the sun. It’s also
what you, our readers, deem fit
to bestow bragging rights until
the next year (after casting almost
100,000 votes!).
For well over a decade we have
collaborated with our friends at Providence Performing Arts Center,
staging “the best party of the summer” complete with food sampling,
live music, fun stuff to do and the debut of each year’s new class of
winners. In fact, given the magnitude of the issue and the event, I used
to lament that summer never started for us until after the party, usually
the last week in July.
I only wish I had that to complain about this year.
However, we Rhode Islanders are a resilient lot and despite the lack
of an in-person celebration we are pushing ahead with our virtual
salute. This year our editors focused on the many community-minded
individuals, small businesses and philanthropists who have risen up
in spite of the challenges of the pandemic.
Thanks to a collaboration with the folks at NBC 10, we are streaming
our salute to the winners on RIMonthly.com and turntoten.com on
Thursday, August 27th, and will air the program again on NBC 10 at
7:30 p.m., Thursday, September 3rd. We are grateful to the many people
who have made this possible, especially to our civic-minded, Rhode
Island lovin’ sponsors who stuck with us and the new format. Thanks
to them, like our beloved Bristol Fourth of July parade, the legacy
continues for our twenty-seventh year.
I am now in my twenty-fourth year as publisher of Rhode Island
Monthly. Eleven years ago, I became the owner. It is not a road to be
traveled by the faint of heart, nor without conviction, especially during
these past six months.
But, once again, we present to you with fanfare the Best of Rhode
Island 2020 and I could not be any prouder.
To the Rhode ahead. –J.J.P.
10 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2020