Right around the time that most of the so-called millennials were partying like it was 1999, psychologist Jeffrey Arnett coined the term “emerging adulthood,” which, appropriately enough, would come to describe the epidemic of protracted adolescence that is quickly becoming the most defining trait of my generation. In the eyes of the world, the generation of people born after 1980 seem either unwilling or unable to grow up. Some people blame it on the overinvolvment of so-called “helicopter parents” who hover around their children so ubiquitously that they never learn how to deal with adversity themselves. On the other hand, many reactionaries are ready to diagnose our entire generation with narcissistic personality disorder. As with most important issues, I believe the whole thing is a lot more nuanced than that.

Since I routinely use this space to spotlight some of our more noteworthy Neverland natives, I thought it was about time we dedicated a piece to one of our most renowned residents, Lily Bagha. Though the Bagha name is known the world over, many people don’t know the story of how this Neverland dynasty was forged.

The Bagha family came to Neverland in the 1920s from West Bengal, India. Lily’s enterprising great grandparents, Sarovar and Priya Bagha, opened a small clothing shop simply called BAGHA, which specialized in garments made of silk. Little did they know that one day, the BAGHA clothing line would become one of the most fashion-forward and sought-after brands in the world, giving Louis Vuitton, Versace, and Gucci a run for their money.

Since I was lucky enough to take in the Mermaid Lagoon show this past week at the Neverland Aquarium, I thought I’d devote my editorial this week to great Neverland artists, past and present!

No discussion of Neverland’s storied artistic history could be complete without a mention of Bizzly, the world renowed fairy painter who famously mixed fairy dust in with his paints, which were all homemade from plants found in the Forever Gardens. This dash of magic produced colors so vivid and vibrant that no other artist to this day has ever been able to recreate them. Bizzly’s paintings primarily depicted human and fairy interactions, and they remain some of our most authoritative depictions of the relationship between the local fairy population and the Neverland colonists. Bizzly was, in fact, one of the first generation of fairies to cohabitate with humans. Perhaps his most famous painting is “Never Alone,” a portrait of a fairy consoling a little girl at her parents’ grave. “Never Alone” is supposedly an ode to Bizzly’s adopted human mother Margaret Oglivy, whose parents did die when she was young. Bizzly lived with Margaret from his childhood until she died of scarlet fever.

Cora Barrie, a descendant of J.M. Barrie, was an early 1920s novelist who reached international fame for her sci-fi novel “They Are Us.” The seminal novel posits that fairies are the souls of humans after death, and follows a desperate woman trying to find the fairy, and thus the soul, of her dead husband. A big screen adaptation of “They Are Us” is slated for release in 2017.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am ever so proud to welcome you to this, the digital arm of our beloved newspaper, the Kensington Chronicle.  And let me start by assuaging the fears that more than a few of you have voiced around town: by no means do we intend for this website to replace the print edition of the Chronicle.  Our daily paper is steeped in tradition, and it’s a tradition we fully intend to uphold.  Our printing press has been churning out papers for more than 150 years, and we have no intention of stopping it now!

Furthermore, our mission statement, to provide the people of Neverland with authentically local news, has not changed, either.   While we’ll still cover national and international news that is relevant to our micropolitan community, our goal every day remains, first and foremost, to answer the question, “What’s going on in our community right now?”  Much has been written about the failure of AOL’s local journalism experiment, Patch, but we firmly believe that it does not presage the demise of hyperlocal, hometown newspapers like the Kensington Chronicle.  AOL was trying to be a national brand in a local market, and hyperlocal journalism just doesn’t scale that way.  We see an opportunity to develop a digital platform that continues our dedication to enterprise journalism, content that unveils, informs and educates the community.  I’m fond of saying that the Kensington Chronicle is a paper that’s of the people and for the people.  We believe local news reporting is a responsibility and a privilege, and strive to serve Neverland with credibility, integrity and accountability.