Thirty-plus interviews and 8,340 words later, Anne Helen Petersen is enjoying a mostly positive buzz.

Petersen penned the story featured last week on BuzzFeed.com called “Welcome to North Idaho: Now Go Home.” Its subtitle is none too subtle: “Wackadoodles, Establishment Hacks, And The Big, Ugly, Local Battle For The Heart Of The GOP.”

Before Petersen’s riveting tale unfolds, there’s this other bit of introductory enticement: “The ‘whiteopia’ of North Idaho has become one of the most desirable places in the West for conservatives to relocate. So why is the local Republican party tearing itself apart — and who’s responsible?”

The story was posted Oct. 22 at 7:04 a.m. It didn’t take long for the feedback to start pouring in.

“Believe it or not, the reaction has been almost entirely positive,” Petersen, a North Idaho native, PhD and author said midweek via email. “Even the vast majority of the people who I interviewed for the story (30+, on all sides of the issues) told me it was fair.”

When asked, Petersen said BuzzFeed doesn’t release readership numbers on its stories (but wished she could!).

The Press reached out to a handful of those 30-plus interviewees for their reaction to the story, which can be viewed at: http://bzfd.it/2xrifE1

“The article in my opinion accurately reflects my experiences since 2008,” said Christa Hazel, whose rancorous divorce from the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee was one of the triggers that fired the story. “I was surprised to see so many similar accounts from solid Republicans I have respected for years. And yet I’m sad. Our community is so much better than this.”

“I think the story is an excellent piece of investigative journalism, and Anne Helen Petersen quite accurately portrays the current political situation in North Idaho,” said Sandy Patano, a former key staffer for U.S. Sen. Larry Craig and one of the area’s most “reasonable” Republicans. “I hope everyone in the region has an opportunity to read her article and judge for themselves.”

Gary Ingram, a former Idaho state representative and father of Idaho’s open meeting laws, urged readers to take advantage of the links imbedded in the text.

“Overall I think her piece was a very good rendition of the state of the Kootenai GOP,” said Ingram, a conservative Republican who has been an outsider to the central committee’s leadership. “The links are important in order to get a more in-depth understanding of the story.”

Same goes for Duane Rasmussen, an attorney who closely follows all things GOP in the region.

“Anne’s story for BuzzFeed was insightful, accurate and fair,” he said. “It was nice to have a national news organization pick a reporter originally from North Idaho to report on North Idaho.”

Hazel expressed concern not with the quality of the story, but with what it actually reveals.

“I am hopeful the article was a beacon for awareness and possibly a change,” said the former Coeur d’Alene School District trustee who ousted the Central Committee’s leader, Brent Regan, in the school board election of 2013.

But?

“I am concerned that instead, it will be a bat signal to attract more,” Hazel said. “I believe things can and will change when the rhetoric is this volatile.”

Supporters of the current Central Committee in general and Regan specifically were less vocal but polite when contacted by The Press. Rev. Paul Van Noy of Candlelight Christian Fellowship declined comment, as did Don Bradway, whom Petersen referred to as “something of the national face of the Redoubt.”

Regan declined as well, but with a flourish that makes even his most ardent critics grudgingly grin.

“No Lucy,” he wrote in his email response to a request for comment, “I don’t want to kick the football.”