Presidents Day is coming up, and it's a perfect chance to involve your readers with your newspaper and Web site. GateHouse News Service has produced three attractive ads that you can run in your paper, as well as a simple image for online callouts.

The Presidents Day reader callout, which asks readers to write in to explain who their favorite president is and why, is available in three sizes: a 5x2 for the bottom of your front page, a 1x2 to run in your front-page rail, or a 4x3 which fits into some of GateHouse's redesigns for page 2. You can run this ad every day for one week, and if you want to give readers more time, you can extend it to two weeks.

This also is an excellent opportunity to reach out to schools in your area. Schools normally have lessons about Presidents Day, and you can ask teachers to have their students write about who their favorite president is and why, and then send them to you. Just be sure to give them a deadline, and then run the responses in print and online.

GateHouse News Service will provide 48 readers callouts this year. A schedule of the ads is available in the Newsroom Handbook. As you get submissions from readers, you can run the responses online and in print. We think it's key to run the ads consistently in a prominent place to get the most out of them. And it's equally important to run the submissions you get in print and online.

On the news service, we are providing a package of links to each of the callouts as we produce them. That way, you can find them easily. The callout links package so far includes the Boy Scouts callout, Valentine's Day callout and the Presidents Day callout.

We hope you find reader callouts a great way to interact with your readers and get them involved in your newspaper and Web site.

Jean Hodges is national editor for GateHouse News Service. You can reach her at jhodges@gatehousemedia.com