The Baker City Herald threw a party last week but no one showed up.

We didn’t call it a party, though.

We called it a andquot;reader forum.andquot;

This, though the term accurately describes the event’s purpose, might be where we went wrong.

We wouldn’t have been lying, exactly, if we had put the word andquot;partyandquot; on the invitations. Publisher Kari Borgen brought cookies and a case of bottled water and she even brewed coffee in a big stainless steel urn the latter in deference to the 7 p.m. start time and the likelihood that people attending would, so near the end of the day, appreciate some stimulating sipping from a styrofoam cup.

I brought myself, a notepad and a pen.

Kari and I talked for half an hour or so, all the while anticipating that, at any moment, the first reader would walk into the meeting room at the library.

About 7:30 we decided to close the cookie containers, dump the coffee down the drain and lug the water out to Kari’s Jeep.

We were disappointed.

But we weren’t mad.

Still aren’t mad, in fact.

The absence of interest in last Thursday’s reader forum surprised us, though, because when we asked some of you, our readers, not long ago what you think of our newspaper, quite a few of you told us.

We didn’t offer you cookies or coffee, either.

We did give you a crayon, but I doubt that turned the thing in our favor. Many of you didn’t keep your crayon, anyway.

We conducted this andquot;crayon surveyandquot; back in March. We mailed one issue of the paper to 100 subscribers. We included a stamped return envelope and a crayon. We asked readers to circle, with the crayon, every item they read or looked at that issue. We also put in a one-page sheet with two questions: andquot;What sorts of things do you think we could do to improve The Baker City Herald?andquot;; and andquot;What do you think The Baker City Herald does well that you’d like to see continue?andquot;

More than half of the readers 56 of you to be precise did the survey and mailed it back to us.

One clever couple, to avoid color confusion, added a second crayon to the one we sent, and the wife used one color to circle what she read, and her husband used the other color. They sent us both crayons, too, which seemed to me exceptionally generous, since we had written off the crayons as gifts.

In any case, we were gratified that so many of you took us up on our offer. We figured the natural successor to the crayon survey was a forum where we could meet some of our readers (and non-readers) and kick around for an hour what they like and equally important for us, what they don’t like about the Baker City Herald.

We mailed invitations to the forum to 46 subscribers and to 46 people who don’t subscribe, everyone picked at random.

We also published an open invitation in the paper for a couple days before the forum. I thought it was a conspicuous ad. The headline, printed in a bold font and in much larger type than the rest of the ad, was, I thought, certain to snare a reader’s eye: andquot;What do you think?andquot;

That’s the sort of open-ended question that few people can resist.

Or maybe not.

We’re a stubborn lot, though, and not easily discouraged.

We’ll probably schedule another reader forum.

If you’re interested, we’d appreciate it if you’d tell us what day and time you could most easily cram into your schedule.

And, as always, we’ve swept off the welcome mat and invite your comments and questions on any topic related to the newspaper.

You can call me or Kari at 523-3673, send a letter to P.O. Box 807, Baker City, OR 97814, fax to 523-6426, or e-mail: Kari’s address is kborgen@bakercityherald.com; mine is jjacoby@bakercityherald.com. Messages sent to news@bakercityherald.com will wend their digital way to my inbox, as well.

Although our lonely wait last Thursday at the library was never abated, we did get one handwritten letter, a few days later, from a reader who couldn’t attend the forum but had several suggestions for us.

The writer, who didn’t sign the letter, prefaced the comments with this: andquot;You asked what we like and what could be improved about our paper.andquot;

I especially like that last phrase andquot;our paper.andquot;

I hope all our readers feel the same.

And I hope some of you can make it to our next forum.

Party, I mean.

Besides, if no one comes we’ll probably just eat all the cookies and end up with a nasty stomachache.

Jayson Jacoby is the editor of the Baker City Herald.