As 2025 comes to a close, we always take a look back at the top stories of the year in news and sports with our annual top 10s, but in this column, I’m divulging what caught the most attention from you — our readers.

The Top 10 selections on our news and sports fronts this week are determined solely by yours truly, with about a 75% focus on impact and a 25% focus on newsworthiness. Through that process, one of the first things I do is bring up our Google analytics, set the time period to Jan. 1 through Dec. 31 and have it show the top 100 most viewed stories on our website.

Through Monday, we’ve had 483,847 total page views, an average of more than 1,300 reads per day — pretty solid numbers considering we’re based in a town of just over 3,000 and have a competing paper, as well.

Our home page always has the most views, more than 75,000 this year, but there is a peculiar No. 2 story this year. Our shortest story of the year — only 90 words long — was the second-most viewed page on our website. Unsurprisingly, it was the story on the death of Wesley Roller, changed with multiple sex crimes and ultimately taking his own life. 

We generally don’t report suicides, but in this instance, there was so much interest in Roller’s case that reporting his death was unavoidable. We received a few requests for more information, such as the nature of the suicide and the location, but a rule of news writing is to say what needs to be said — nothing less and nothing more — and I believe that’s what we did.

The No. 3 most viewed page was the news category, and No. 4 was obituaries, both on par with the norm. No. 5 was the original story on Roller’s charges, and Nos. 6 and 7 were both obituaries, Noah Mills and Donavon Mitchell, respectively. The latter hit home for us personally, as Donavon is the uncle of our eldest daughter. I’ve learned over the years here that in small community newspapers, we are affected personally more often than our readers might think. That was a tough one.

Rounding out the top 10 most read stories was the Cassville police converging on a home on Oakhill Drive following a police chase (No. 8), a follow-up on additional charges on Roller (No. 9) and our sports category page (No. 10). 

Beyond those, the story on Marvin Lance McCullough’s identification following his alleged murder, a story on a local non-profit board member’s alleged theft from the organization, the Amazon facility being built in Monett, a story on a Cassville woman being struck by a vehicle and a story on a former police officer being charged with child porn possession made up the next five most read.

In the top 100, crime stories dominate the analytics — almost always the case year by year.

Once analyzing the website analytics, I then go to Facebook and pull a report for the year, which is usually a bit more upbeat.

The No. 1 most-viewed post this year set a record for most views and most reach in my history at this publication. The video of Wesley Lowry’s Homecoming proposal to Nevaeh Hall had a wide reach before we were able to post it, but when we were able to obtain the original video (many thanks to Nevaeh’s aide that provided it), it absolutely went viral. That video has more than 2,200,000 views and is still garnering comments and views daily, months after it was posted.

We’ve been intentionally delving more into video this year, and the results show, as the next three top viewed posts were all reels. At No. 2 was the video of anglers casting their lines at the gun on Opening Day, garnering more than 738,000 views and hundreds of frankly hateful comments from west coast salmon fishermen who clearly do not understand the allure and magic of March 1 at Roaring River State Park. 

No. 3 was also a Roaring River fishing reel, one I shot a week after Opening Day while fishing myself. That one got more than 150,000 views. No. 4 was a reel of Rodeo Queen Jayden Robbins, coming in at 130,000 views.

At No. 5 was a throwback story, my wife Jordan’s series on the murder of Justin Hocutt, which we reposted by request and raked in nearly 120,000 views.

The first current news story to make the list came in at No. 6, the original post about McCullough’s body being found. Nos. 7-10 included a video of Cassville Valedictorian Elizabeth Butler’s speech, the post of Noah Mills’ obituary and the story on the train-versus-semi wreck in Butterfield.

Sports-wise, the top Facebook story came in at No. 18, the reel of Ethan Sizemore celebrating his Barry County Brawl win by posing for a photo when I was taking video — an instant classic garnering almost 50,000 views. The Cassville softball team’s state quarterfinal win over Southern Boone was the next sports story on the Facebook list, coming in at No. 20 with almost 40,000 views.

The website is a different beast. The first sports story to show up in the views ranking comes in at No. 69, the live update post for the Cassville-Reeds Spring district quarterfinal.

Looking back at what hit and what didn’t is always a learning experience, and I’m taking lessons from this year’s analytics into 2026 to hopefully deliver the kind of content you all enjoy.

Here’s to 2025 and an even greater 2026!

Kyle Troutman has served as editor of the Cassville Democrat since 2014 and owner/publisher since 2023. He is a three-time ISWNE Golden Dozen award winner. He may be reached at 417-847-2610 or [email protected].