One of the valuable things my mother taught me was that you learn far more when you are listening than when you're speaking. We teach young reporters this and expect it of our salespeople. And although we hear from our readers every day, once a year we seek to understand them more thoroughly, through a reader survey.

We recently compiled the results of our most recent survey, conducted in May, and 574 of you graciously took the time to respond. We are truly thankful for that, because when we take the time to listen, we learn a lot from you.

Among the things we learned, as we've seen now for 27-plus years, is that you are an extraordinarily loyal and select audience. We also got a glimpse of modest signs of economic recovery, as well as hints about what is important to you.

More of you (10 percent versus 7 percent last year) plan to open additional business locations in the next 12 months. Notably, of such plans, we saw the bigger increase among those of you who plan to open that new location in a new structure, rather than an existing one, a good sign for architects, engineers, and contractors.

Although there was little change in the share of you who plan to buy or sell a home in the coming year (13 percent), those who do increasingly are looking at condos and 55-plus communities, perhaps a sign of the continuing baby boomer journey.

There's good news for car dealers. More than 30 percent of our readers plan to lease or buy a vehicle in the coming year, up slightly from last year. On average they plan to look at vehicles costing about $29,000. Nearly 11 percent plan to spend more than $40,000 on that next rig.

Not surprisingly, health care is on your mind. Nearly a quarter of you say your company will shop for an employee medical plan in the coming year. Interestingly, nearly 70 percent (by far the highest share) of you say that "reputation and capabilities" are the most important factors you consider when choosing a medical-care clinic or hospital. Perhaps that helps explain the billboards, TV, and even the print advertising in this newspaper from providers seeking to tell their stories.

And in another baby boomer characteristic, more than 25 percent of you say you assist in the care or decision making for an elderly or disabled person.

We love this about our readers: 92 percent have donated to a charity in the past 12 months and an amazing 60 percent have volunteered their time. Kudos to you.

And we're not done bragging about you. More than 90 percent of you have attended college, and two-thirds of you have at least a four-year degree; nearly 30 percent have done graduate study. About 63 percent of you are business owners or managers, the average value of your homes is about $360,000, and your average household income is about $135,000, compared with about $48,000 for Spokane County in general. OK, you're aging a little—more of you crossed that threshold into the 50-64 age group. Welcome.

As for loyalty, we at the Journal remain blessed to have you. You spend nearly 30 minutes with each issue of the Journal, 84 percent of you say you find our email updates useful, and, on average, you pass along your copy of the paper to at least two other people. I admit it, I'd prefer the other two buy a subscription, but we do appreciate the pass-along nonetheless.

Most of all, we appreciate then 127 comments you made at the end of the survey, some of which suggested changes we should make, but nearly all of which were very kind affirmations of what we do. We're glad we took the time to listen.