Arkansas Publisher Weekly: December 30, 2020

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Forum with governor, legislators set for Jan. 8 via Zoom

Arkansas Press Association

Guest Column: Twelve ad campaign tips

By John Foust

Publisher Weekly Vol. 15 | No. 53 | Thursday, December 30, 2020 | Serving Press and State Since 1873

In Memoriam

Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2020

The Arkansas Press Association mourned the loss of many people associated with Arkansas newspapers or the state’s journalism community in 2020. We remember and pay tribute to those we lost over the past year: Phyllis Brandon

Phyllis Dillaha Brandon, 84, Little Rock, Jan. 11. Brandon was the founding editor of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette’s High Profile section. She was High Profile editor for 23 years and editor-in-chief of Arkansas Life magazine for two years before retiring. Brandon was a member of the University of Arkansas Journalism Hall of Fame and was a Women and Children First Arkansas Woman of the Year recipient. She was a member of the Pulaski County Democratic Committee and Pulaski County Election Commission.

Nathan Hooker

Jerry Milner

Nathan Harvey Hooker, 80, Montgomery, Texas, Jan. 18. A former general manager of the Paragould Daily Press, he also wrote a column for that newspaper and was twice recognized as the Arkansas Daily Columnist of the Year. A Leachville native and graduate of Hendrix College, Hooker went on to work in corporate public relations for the American Red Cross. He was also a co-founder of the Houston (Texas) Business Journal.

Jerry David Milner, 73, Camden, Jan. 28. Milner was a retired communications director for International Paper in Camden and was a frequent contributor to the Camden News. He was an expert sports photographer who provided photography services free of charge to the newspaper.

Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2020 Jay Friedlander

Edward Jay Friedlander, 74, Tampa, Florida, Jan. 31. Friedlander was a journalism professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock from 1975 to 1995. He served as journalism department chairman at UALR and later was director of the University of South Florida School of Mass Communications. Friedlander coauthored textbooks used by more than 250 colleges and universities in the United States.

Johnny Green

Johnny Allen Green, 76, Hooks, Texas, Feb. 11. Green spent all but one year of a five-decade journalism career at the Texarkana Gazette, where he was sports director. He started working at the Texarkana newspaper after graduating from high school in 1962. Texarkana (Texas) High School has a scholarship in his honor for a student who wishes to pursue a career in sportswriting.

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Henry Bielefeld, Jr.

Henry E. Bielefeld, Jr., 100, Little Rock, Feb. 7. A native of Louisville, Kentucky, Bielefeld started a newspaper route “as soon as he could ride a bike,” and was involved in the newspaper industry until he enlisted in the Army at the start of World War II. He was a Korean War veteran and a retired colonel who settled in Little Rock following his retirement from military service.

Charles Portis

Charles McColl Portis, 86, Little Rock, Feb. 17. A southwest Arkansas native who went on to achieve international acclaim as a novelist, Portis got his start in journalism at the Northwest Arkansas Times in Fayetteville. He was a University of Arkansas graduate and Korean War veteran. He reported for the Arkansas Gazette, the New York Herald Tribune and Newsweek before writing a New York Times Bestseller, “True Grit.” That novel was the basis for two major motion pictures.

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Anna Swaim-Rogers

Anna Mae Swaim-Rogers, 88, North Little Rock, Feb. 9. A native and lifelong resident of North Little Rock, she worked for the Arkansas Democrat during her career. In addition, she was an employee of the Pulaski County Assessor’s Office prior to retirement.

Alma Hahn

Alma Joyce Hahn, 88, Benton, Feb. 20.

Hahn was a columnist and book reviewer for the Saline Courier in Benton. Her popular column, “This, That and The Other,” was published from 2009 to 2014.

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Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2020 Jay Jackson

Kip Jackson

Beverly Reep

Jay William Jackson, 94, Rogers, March 6. Jackson was a past publisher of the Van Buren County Democrat in Clinton and was a past president of the Arkansas Press Association. He and his wife, Patsy, owned the newspaper for more than 47 years. He was Arkansas state chairman of the National Newspaper Association and he was chairman of the NNA’s International Relations Committee.

He was a past president of the Clinton Chamber of Commerce and served on the Clinton City Council for 30 years. He earned the APA’s Distinguished Service Award in 1998

Kipling Anthony “Kip” Jackson, 48, North Little Rock, March 23. Jackson worked in the IT Department of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette from 1993 to 2001 and again from 2003 to 2008.

He was also employed by Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Windstream in his career. Jackson died of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.

Beverly Ann Holloway Reep, 63, Warren, April 18. Reep was the wife of former state Rep. Gregg Reep of Warren and the mother of Robert (Rob) Reep, the publisher of the online news site, the Saline River Chronicle. She was a teacher in Warren, and she studied journalism at Henderson State University. Reep died of complications related to the COVID-19 virus.

Carla Harrison

Bob Bumgardner

Pam Killinsworth

Carla Michelle Harrison, 58, Waldron, May 29. Harrison worked as a designer and advertising salesperson for several newspapers, including the Times Record in Fort Smith, the Scott County Advertiser and the Waldron News. She was a Waldron native and graduate of Waldron High School.

Robert “Bob” Leon Bumgardner, 84, North Little Rock, June 5. A longtime associate member of the APA, Bumgardner was president and general manager of Jungkind Photo-Graphics in Little Rock.

The business was the only Kodak graphic arts dealer in Arkansas. His products and services were utilized by many Arkansas newspapers.

Pamela Jean Gazaway Killinsworth, 55, Las Vegas, June 12. A native of Pocahontas who attended Arkansas State University, Killinsworth was an awardwinning graphic artist and page designer for newspapers in Las Vegas. She was at the Las Vegas Sun from 1988 to 2005, leaving there as head of that newspaper’s graphics department. She was then a graphic designer at the Las Vegas Review-Journal from 2005 to 2018.

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Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2020 Ted Wagnon

Ted William Wagnon, 68, Little Rock, June 13. Wagnon was a co-founder and the first-ever editor of Arkansas Business, helping grow that publication into a definitive source for news in Arkansas.

A native of Stephens, Wagnon was an Arkansas State University graduate. He was also editor of the Benton Courier and later worked in public relations with VOX Global and Fleishman-Hillard before starting his own firm, Wagnon Associates.

Jerry McConnell

Jerry E. McConnell, 92, Greenwood, June 25. McConnell, a lifelong journalist, was managing editor of the Arkansas Democrat from 1971 to 1978. He was executive sports editor at the Oklahoman and Oklahoma City Times. A charter member of the Arkansas Track and Field Hall of Fame, McConnell was president of the Little Rock chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists and was inducted in the Lemke Journalism Alumni Society’s Hall of Honor at the University of Arkansas.

David Parker

David Shannon Parker, 56, Jacksonville, June 28. Parker was a photographer for The Leader in Pulaski County for 30 years. He got his job by walking into the newspaper’s offices in Jacksonville in 1990 and asking to take photographs of news and sports. Over his career, he won several APA awards for news and sports photography.

Milton Scott

James Tyson

Dorothy Moore

Milton Bard Scott, 95, Benton, July 22. A longtime government relations professional who came out of retirement to represent the APA as a lobbyist, Scott worked to protect and strengthen the Freedom of Information Act. He was a key player in the creation of the state’s first Arkansas Student Publications Act. Before working for APA, Scott was the lobbyist for the Arkansas Farm Bureau. He was a Saline County native and a Navy veteran.

APA staff enjoyed his annual Christmas gift of homemade peanut brittle.

James Roy Tyson, 80, Atkins, July 23. Tyson was a third-generation newspaperman who owned and operated Tyson Communications along with his parents. He was a co-publisher of the Augusta Advocate as well as newspapers in Lake Village, Eudora and Dermott.

He was a composing room foreman at newspapers in the Virgin Islands and at the Scottsdale Progress and Mesa Tribune in Arizona. A graduate of Ouachita Baptist College, he also served as a Captain in the U.S Army.

Dorothy Lee McClure Moore, 87, Adona, Aug. 3. Moore was a columnist for the Petit Jean Country Headlight in Morrilton. For 57 years, Moore kept readers informed about the comings and goings in the small Perry County community of 200 where she lived.

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Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2020 Ken Ingle Bridges

Sandra Tennyson

Wilton Graves

Kenneth Darrin Ingle Bridges, 55, Little Rock, Sept. 1. Bridges worked for more than three decades as the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, where he was a pre-press worker, third shift supervisor and a classified-ad builder. He was a Scoutmaster with Boy Scouts of America and a volunteer with the Our Lady of Holy Souls Care Team and the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network.

Sandra Diane Tennyson, 64, Columbia, Missouri, Sept. 1. Formerly of Blytheville, Tennyson and her husband, David, previously owned several newspapers in northeast Arkansas and the Missouri bootheel, among them the Osceola Times and Blytheville Courier-News. Described as having “an unwavering enthusiasm for life”, Tennyson worked to improve the lives of homeless people and animals.

Wilton Clements Graves, 99, Nashville, Sept. 22. Graves was the matriarch of a Howard County newspaper family.

She was the widow of publisher Louis “Swampy” Graves and the mother of Louie Graves and Mike Graves, who each published newspapers in Nashville.

She occasionally worked in the darkroom at the Nashville News developing film and making prints, and was the organist at St. Martin’s Catholic Church in Nashville for more than 50 years.

Oleatha Wulfekuhler

Jim Clark

Anita Tucker

Oleatha Jane Wulfekuhler, 96, Pine Bluff, Sept. 30. Wulfekuhler and her husband, Fred, owned the Paragould Daily Press from 1959 until the early 1990s. The Wolfekuhlers were active members of APA and attended many conventions. She relocated to Hot Springs Village in 1992 and then to Pine Bluff in 2004. Fred Wulfekuhler preceded her in death in 2006.

James Howard “Jim” Clark, 88, Rogers, Nov. 13. Clark was a copy editor and assistant news editor for the Arkansas Gazette before starting the local newspaper in the Bella Vista community in 1966. In 1968 he went to the News and Information Department at the University of Arkansas, where he worked for 13 years. Later, he served as Prosecuting Attorney and was elected to both the Rogers and Bentonville city councils.

Anita Elaine Tucker, 61, Clinton, Nov. 18.

Tucker was co-owner and editor of The Voice of Van Buren County, a newspaper she helped start in 2015. She previously was editor of the Van Buren County Democrat and worked for newspapers in Florida and at the Arkansas DemocratGazette.

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Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2020 Joe Mason, Sr.

Harold Jameson

Dennis Schick

Joe Vance Mason, Sr., 84, Star City, Nov. 29. After a long career in banking, Mason and his wife, Peggy, purchased the Lincoln Ledger newspaper in Star City in the 1980s.

He was the editor of the newspaper until his death. A Star City “Man of the Year,” he served as governor of the American Institute of Banking and was a Star City alderman, Library Commission chairman and Parks and Recreation Commission chairman.

Harold Camp Jameson, 88, Magnolia, Dec. 1. The sports editor for the Magnolia Banner-News, Jameson worked for that newspaper for more than 40 years. He was sports information director at Southern Arkansas University for 13 years, and he served as a correspondent for a number of newspapers including the Arkansas Democrat, Arkansas Gazette and the Shreveport Times. Jameson was retired from the Arkansas Army National Guard and was an inductee into the Southern Arkansas University Sports Hall of Fame.

C. Dennis Schick, 83, North Little Rock, Dec. 7. Schick was executive director of the Arkansas Press Association from 1979 to 2004. He worked alongside his wife, Jan, to modernize the APA and move the association into the 21st Century in a new location near the state Capitol. He was a university professor who taught at schools in Illinois, Oklahoma and Texas before moving to Arkansas. Schick was a member of the Arkansas Tourism Hall of Fame, and he earned lifetime achievement awards from the Arkansas Society of Association Executives and state advertising federation.

Charlotte Schexnayder

Larry Stroud

INDUSTRY QUOTE As a journalist, one tends to think there’s nothing off limits.

- Peter Jennings Charlotte Tillar Schexnayder, 96, Little Rock, Dec. 11. An icon in the Arkansas newspaper industry and a trailblazing journalist, Schexnayder was the first female president of the Arkansas Press Association and first female president of the National Newspaper Association. A native of Tillar, she was editor of the McGehee Times for eight years, and owner, publisher and editor of The Dumas Clarion for 44 years. She served in the Arkansas General Assembly for 14 years, and she was a member of the Arkansas Women’s Hall of Fame.

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Larry Duane Stroud, 70, Cave City, Dec. 27. Stroud was a reporter and associate editor for the Batesville Daily Guard for more than 30 years. He was a Cave City native, and he was a brick and block layer all his life. He co-owned Stroud Masonry Construction and was manager of his son’s music business.

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December 30, 2020

Forum with governor, legislators set for Jan. 8th via Zoom Gov. Asa Hutchinson and leaders of the Arkansas House and Senate will preview the upcoming General Assembly during an online forum on Friday, Jan. 8.

Happy New Year from the APA staff

Hutchinson, Speaker of the House Matthew Shepherd, R-El Dorado, and Senate President Pro Tempore Jimmy Hickey, R-Texarkana will outline their goals and priorities for the legislative session. Each man will provide remarks before fielding questions from journalists.

The Arkansas Press Association and Associated Press are sponsors of the forum, which starts at 1:30 p.m. on Jan. 8th with Shepherd and Hickey. Gov. Hutchinson follows at 2:30 p.m.

The event will be presented online only. To register to attend, email info@ arkansaspress.org by Jan. 6. Only registered participants will receive a link to log in to the forum.

—30— Larry Stroud

Larry Stroud, a longtime reporter and editor for the Batesville Daily Guard died Sunday, Dec. 27 in Cave City. Stroud was 70.

A Batesville native, Stroud spent more than three decades at the Batesville newspaper, where he was an associate editor and reporter. He was also co-owner of a bricklaying business, Stroud Masonry Construction, and he was a manager for his musician son, Luke Stroud.

Stroud was a graduate of Cave City High School and he earned a degree from Arkansas Tech University.

He is survived by his wife, Wanda; his son; and one sister.

Memorial services may be scheduled for a later date.

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December 30, 2020

Gannett launches America’s Newspapers to kick off 2021 digital redesign, with two new training webinars America’s Newspapers will sponsor On Jan. 27 at 11 a.m., employees of the adds reporter two webinars designed for newspaper The Times Record in Fort Smith and several weekly newspapers owned by Gannett Co. have launched redesigned websites and a newly designed mobile app, the newspapers announced.

In a Times Record column about the changes, Editor John Lovett said the changes “feature a cleaner design with a lot of bells and whistles that allow us to push news faster and better integrate multimedia in an experience that also happens to load much faster.”

Lovett said the redesigned sites should help the newspapers deliver news more efficiently to readers. In addition to the Times Record, the Booneville Democrat, Paris Express, Charleston Express and Press Argus-Courier in Van Buren have undergone website improvements as well.

managers and leaders, as it launches its 2021 training programs.

On Jan. 13 at 11 a.m., labor attorneys from the law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP will discuss what newspapers can expect from the Biden administration from an employer perspective. The attorneys will go over wage-and-hour issues, personnel policies and occupational safety.

This hour-long webinar, intended for publishers, senior executives and human resources professionals, is free to members of America’s Newspapers.

Register at newspapers.org/webinar2020-election/

Star Tribune in Minneapolis will present a webinar on how to use GIS technology to support the sales and marketing department of a newspaper. Two people from that newspaper will share successful, real-life case studies about topics like subscription segmentation, circulation distribution and digital geofencing.

Publishers, advertising directors and audience and distribution executives are invited to attend.

For more information about the Jan. 27 webinar, and to register, go to newspapers. org/webinar-gis/

Lovett also announced that reporter Alex Gladden has joined the team as a regional reporter for Logan County. Gladden will write primarily for the Booneville and Paris newspapers, but will also contribute to the Times Record.

Gladden, a Van Buren native, previously interned at the Times Record. She has also been a reporter at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and the Jonesboro Sun.

Support the future of Arkansas journalism by giving to the Arkansas Newspaper Foundation.

Ways to give: Estate planning, memorial and honor gifts and charitable donations.

The Arkansas newspaper Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization.

For more information call APA at 501-374-1500 or email info@arkansaspress.org.

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Guest Column: Twelve ad campaign tips

By John Foust A single ad probably won’t generate much business. The real work is done in multiad campaigns. Here are a dozen tips: 1. Learn from history. It’s important to study your advertiser’s marketing history. If something worked, could that tactic be applied in the next campaign? If something failed, how can that mistake be avoided next time?

2. Pick the right target audience. Think specifics, not generalities. It’s impossible to sell a product or service to everyone.

Select a particular segment of your overall audience and aim your message directly at them.

3. Study the advertiser’s competition.

While you don’t want to duplicate what they are doing and risk being confused with them, there are lessons from things they have done. For example, if they ran a successful “Christmas in July” sale last year, you may want to consider a unique off-season sale this year.

4. Extend the budget with co-op. Many retailers can get advertising assistance from the brands they carry. Brands are eager for exposure and often share the cost of local ads. There are guidelines, so

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be sure to check things in advance.

5. Give readers a reason-to-buy in every ad. Although the word “campaign” implies long-term advertising, today’s readers may not be in the market for your advertiser’s products tomorrow. That’s why it’s a good idea to avoid “teaser messages” and go for the sale in every ad.

6. Be consistent. Each ad should look like it belongs to the same advertiser. In addition to consistent graphics – logo, typography, illustrative elements – the writing style should be the same.

7. Schedule frequency. Be sure to run ads often enough to be familiar to your target audience. Of course, frequency should increase during peak selling times and decrease during off-season times.

8. Consider testing. Does “buy one, get one free” resonate with readers? Or does it work better to say, “Fifty percent off, when you buy two?” The discounts are identical, but you’ll never know which one is better unless you try both offers and keep count.

9. Adjust to surprises.

When unexpected things happen, smart marketers adapt to the situation. For

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example, when the coronavirus pandemic first hit, office supply companies started promoting work-at-home supplies.

10. Mix print and online. Most newspapers offer both print and digital options. This creates greater flexibility – and bigger readership numbers – in campaign scheduling. Don’t think of it as “either print or digital.” Think of it as “print and digital.”

11. Get the advertiser’s sales team on board. The best ads in the world won’t work if the advertiser isn’t prepared to deal with the leads the ads generate.

When there’s a special sale, everyone in the business should know the details. If there’s a new product introduction, they should be able to talk about features and benefits.

12. Measure results. When you track responses – and the resulting sales – you’ll be in position to do more of what’s working and less of what’s not working.

This calls for a close partnership between your paper and the advertiser.

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