Refreshing our vision. Our new look and new awards program merit a few words from Publisher, Evan Allen Wood.
As you may have noticed already, for the first time in almost eight years, we’ve done a top-to-bottom redesign of the magazine, and we’ve updated our logo for the first time in 16 years. What’s more, the magazine itself is a little wider, and the paper stock is slightly heavier.
If you’re a longtime subscriber, it’s fair to conjecture that you liked the old design and format, and you may not be sold on the new one yet. But let me make the case.
In the 53 years Missouri Life magazine has been around, the medium has changed. This is especially true of the last 26 years that my parents, Greg and Danita Wood, have been stewarding the publication. We’ve all seen the rise of digital media; the adoption of smartphones; the constant increase in the price of paper, printing, ink, and postage required to produce and deliver a quality print publication; economic turmoil; and the alarming trend of our shrinking attention spans.
Certain things have stayed the same, though. I belong to the first generation of digital natives, yet I firmly believe that the printed page remains the best place to read a good story, especially one illustrated by beautiful photographs or art. For the time being, we’ve seen no advancements in technology that do a better job conveying good storytelling than print.
The experience of reading on the screen just doesn’t captivate me in the same way. I dislike having to bat away pop-up ads, and we likely share concern about the collection of our personal data.
Even so, we’re committed to most of the digital formats, so you can connect with us anytime, whether on our website, our e-newsletter, or social media.
Our hearts lie with telling Missouri stories in the best way, no matter the format. That’s why we felt it was a perfect time to refresh our design and update our structure to enhance what matters most to us. We spent a long time taking stock of our values and considering our identity and how to translate these into a new layout and more value for you, in terms of wider and higher quality paper.
Something else that’s stayed the same over the years: Missouri remains a remarkable, beautiful, fascinating place. All that time spent thinking about our values yielded an idea that cuts to the core of why we do what we do here at Missouri Life: Missouri deserves to be celebrated by the people who call it home. With that in mind, we kick off this new era of our existence with our inaugural Show Me The Best issue.
Narrowing down the superlatives in each category across the state for this issue was difficult work, and we want to thank the readers who submitted nominations and cast their votes. We also leaned on our editorial judgment to bestow some recognition. Together, we have selected some of the best things to experience across the state. We trust that if you feel we’ve overlooked something, you’ll let us know. Be sure to tell us what you think of our new look.
Evan Allen Wood, Publisher
This column was originally printed in the January 2026 issue of Missouri Life.
