About the Prairie Village Post

Launched in June 2010, PVPost.com is a hyperlocal news site covering government, sports, events and business in northeast Johnson County, Kan. From city council meetings and new construction to ice cream socials and lost pets, PVPost.com is the place for you to connect with the community — but we need your help! See something you’d like to have us take a look into? Have an event you’d like to promote? Have a great picture you’d like to share with our readers? Send your story ideas, photos and tips to stories [at] pvpost.com.

Who writes the site?

At its inception, Prairie Village Post was maintained by the husband and wife team of Jay Senter and Julia Westhoff, who live in a PV cape cod with their recent addition, Olivia, and their even more recent addition, Daisy.

Jay, Olivia, Julia and Daisy

Jay is a new-media entrepreneur with experience working in both traditional and interactive formats, and as both a journalist and a public relations professional. Jay has a master’s degree in journalism from KU, and has written for the Kansas City Star, Yahoo! Sports, the Lawrence Journal-World and KCFreePress.com.

He was raised in Prairie Village and graduated from Shawnee Mission East in 1998.

Julia has a long background in journalism as well, having served as the News Content Editor of the Badger Herald, a 16,000 daily circulation newspaper serving the University of Wisconsin – Madison community. Her writing has appeared in the Lawrence Journal-World, the Pitch and on Lawrence.com. She primarily writes about food and restaurants for PVPost.com.

Prior to moving back to Prairie Village, Jay and Julia were Peace Corps volunteers in Panama. (You can read more about those adventures here).

Olivia is really cute, but doesn’t do much writing yet. She does, however, seem fond of telling stories to her younger sister — even if they don’t make very much sense.

The whole family was honored to receive the Prairie Village Community Spirit Award in 2012.

Dan Blom.

Around that time, interest in the site had grown large enough that it was time to bring on some talented help. So in August 2012, Jay and Julia were lucky to be joined by co-publisher Dan Blom, a newspaper industry veteran who, conveniently, has lived in Prairie Village for more than a decade with his wife Jeanne and two sons, Daniel and Eric.

Before moving to Kansas, Blom worked 29 years at Indiana newspapers of family-owned Howard Publications. He started as a reporter, then spent 15 years as an editor and nearly 10 years on the business side as operations director, general manager and publisher.

Dan has spoken more than 30 times at newspaper conventions and seminars and has lectured at seven universities. Since living in Prairie Village, he has been president of the Countryside East Homes Association, founding president of the Highlands Education Foundation and president of PTAs at Highlands and Indian Hills.

Before joining PVPost.com, Dan taught at the University of Kansas, was the first citizen engagement coordinator at the Mid-America Regional Council, and was part of a civic engagement consulting team at the non-profit Consensus. He has a master’s degree from KU, a bachelor’s from Indiana University and is a graduate of the Northwestern University Media Management Center Advanced Executive Program.