By CLAYTON and SUSAN PARK

Time flies when you're on deadline.

It's hard for us to believe, but it was five years ago this month that we published the first issue of The Jet City Maven, the North Seattle community newspaper now known as the Seattle Sun.

While in some ways it seems like it was only yesterday that we were scrambling to get that first eight-page issue to the printer, but consider this:

Since our first issue in March 1997, Seattle has seen three mayors: Norm Rice, Paul Schell and our recently elected incumbent Greg Nickels; Pinehurst/Haller Lake resident Peter Steinbrueck, who was first elected to the City Council in November 1997, is now the City Council's president; and North Seattle Community College has seen SIX (count 'em) presidents: Constance Rice, Peter Ku, Raymond Needham, Kathleen Noble, James Ford and Ronald LaFayette.

Our original intent in starting a paper was modest: we would put out a neighborhood newsletter that we could photocopy and pass around to people in our then-community of Licton Springs.

But Yolanda Martinez of the Lake City Little City Hall had a better suggestion. When we contacted her to ask about how to contact the community groups in Licton Springs and the nearby Maple Leaf neighborhood, her response was: "Oh, you're starting a paper? Well, Lake City really needs a paper!"

Before we knew it, we were getting price quotes from printers to publish a full-blown newspaper - on real newsprint.

Over the years, the Sun has grown from a circulation of 5,000 copies distributed solely in Northeast Seattle to a circulation today of 21,000 copies (and growing!) distributed throughout all of North Seattle.

In the fall of 1998, we moved our newspaper operations out of our home into our present office in Lake City. We now have two employees: reporter Leah Weathersby, who joined us in October 2000, and ad rep Melanie Hendricks, who came on board in January. We also have several great contributing writers: columnists Stan Stapp, Jane Lotter, Matt Maury, Tina Sutherland and Charlie Bailey and news intern Rhys Walters.

In the past five years, we have also received several awards for excellence in journalism from the Society of Professional Journalists and Washington Press Association. In 1998, we also received a national honor for community service from USA Neighborhoods.

Of course, none of this would have been possible without our advertisers, several of whom have been with us nearly from the start. We hope readers who appreciate receiving the Sun will patronize our advertisers to let them know you appreciate their support - and use the coupons in this paper!

As we look forward to another exciting year of producing the Sun, our mission remains the same as always: to provide North Seattleites with coverage of the news about their communities - the kind the big papers tend to overlook - and to keep those printers happy by meeting our deadlines!