Arkansas Publisher Weekly: December 30, 2021

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Guest Column:

Arkansas Press Association

Managing is not binary

By Doug Phares

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APA sends letter to Sen. Tom Cotton

Publisher Weekly

By Ashley Kemp Wimberley

Vol. 15 | No. 52 | Thursday, December 30, 2021 | Serving Press and State Since 1873

In Memoriam

Arkansas newspaper industry deaths in 2021

The Arkansas Press Association mourned the loss of many people associated with Arkansas newspapers or the state’s journalism community in 2021. We remember and pay tribute to those we lost over the past year: Wes Tate

James Wesley “Wes” Tate, 48, Collinsville, Oklahoma, Dec. 30, 2020. Tate was a former sports reporter and features writer for the Madison County Record and a former member and chairman of the Huntsville Planning Commission. A graduate of Collinsville High School, Tate lived in Nashville, Tennessee to pursue a singing career before moving back closer to home. He died of complications of COVID-19.

Richard Folds

Sonny Hildebrand

Richard Folds, 84, Malvern, Jan. 4. Folds was publisher of the Malvern Daily Record from 2000 until his retirement in 2018.

He previously was the Daily Record’s advertising manager, working a total of 27 years for the newspaper. Folds was a president of the Lions Club and was twice selected as Lion of the Year. He also served the Malvern/Hot Spring County Chamber of Commerce Board and the library board. A native of Atlanta, Folds was a Navy veteran.

Roy Harold “Sonny” Hildebrand, 72, Fayetteville, Jan. 8. Hildebrand worked in media sales in Northwest Arkansas for more than three decades, retiring from the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 2018. He was a veteran of the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was stationed at several posts throughout the United States and Europe. Hildebrand also served as the halftime and competition announcer for the Fayetteville High School and Ramay Junior High bands, and he was the announcer for Northwest Arkansas Winds.

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Lamar James

Lamar Scurlock James, 73, Jacksonville, Jan. 10. James was a former reporter and photographer who spent the latter part of his career writing about agriculture for the University of Arkansas Division of Agriculture Cooperative Extension Service. Before that he was a reporter at newspapers in Texas and Arkansas, including the Pine Bluff Commercial and the Arkansas Gazette. He was also a self-employed wedding photographer. A native of Malvern, James held a degree in political science and journalism from Ouachita Baptist University.

Maryln Moody

Chuck Dunn

Maryln Joe Harmon Moody, 78, McCrory, Jan. 11. Moody was the retired advertising manager for the Woodruff County MonitorLeader-Advocate, where she worked for 22 years. A native of Wiville, she was a graduate of Cotton Plant High School and the Memphis School of Business. She was employed at Sears in Memphis and at American Greetings in McCrory before starting her career at the Monitor in 1996.

Moody was also a longtime volunteer for Woodruff County Relay for Life.

Robert Lee “Chuck” Dunn, 69, Plainview, Jan. 12. For more than three decades, Dunn was a photographer and printer for the Yell County Democrat. His photos focused primarily on the Plainview, Ola and Fourche Valley areas. A native of Bakersfield, California, Dunn was retired from the Plainview Volunteer Fire Department and was also a former reserve deputy for the Yell County Sheriff’s Office.

David Tennyson

Pat Lynch

David Carl Tennyson, 68, Columbia, Missouri, Feb. 7. Tennyson formerly owned several newspapers in Arkansas and Missouri through his business, Tennyson Publishing Company. A native of Steele, Missouri, his family acquired the Steele Enterprise in 1956. Tennyson took over the business in 1980 and expanded with the purchase of the Village News in Missouri and the South Mississippi County Citizen-Journal in Arkansas.

Tennyson Publishing later published the Blytheville Courier-News, the Osceola Times and the Caruthersville DemocratArgus before selling the properties to Rust Communications.

Joseph “Pat” Lynch, 70, Little Rock, Feb. 24. Lynch was a well-known radio personality who also wrote an opinion column for the Arkansas DemocratGazette from 2000 to 2011.The host of a popular talk show on KARN for 17 years, he also did stints at KABZ and KDXE and served on the national board of the American Civil Liberties Union. Among those interviewed by Lynch were Captain Kangaroo, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Tiny Tim and Tommy Lasorda and Vin Scully of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Hanna Clark

Hanna Belle Clark, 24, Little Rock, Jan. 13. Clark was a copy editor and designer for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. She had worked for the newspaper since 2019, after graduating from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock with a degree in mass communications. During college she interned for the Clinton School of Public Service and the North Little Rock William F. Laman Library, and was vice president of Chi Omega sorority and twice captain of the UALR dance team.

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Bob Bevil

Van Tyson

Paul Smith

Bob J. Bevil, 78, Fort Smith, Feb. 25.

For more than 50 years, Bevil was owner and publisher of the Ozark Spectator.

Bevil bought the newspaper from former Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus in 1968.

Bevil turned down many offers to sell because he wanted it to stay a “familyowned enterprise with local control and local flavor.” Before owning the Spectator, he first worked there during high school.

Bevil also previously reported for newspapers in Fort Smith, Fayetteville and El Dorado.

Van Allen Tyson, 85, Atkins, Feb. 27.

Tyson was a retired newspaper owner and publisher, journalism professor and Arkansas Newspaper Foundation board member and former president. Tyson owned the Atkins Chronicle for 38 years, and worked to enhance Arkansas newspapers and the journalism profession, mentoring hundreds of young journalists over his 30-year career teaching journalism at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville.

Besides the Chronicle, Tyson had owned the Dover Times, and previously worked at the Des Moines Tribune in Iowa and at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Paul Smith, 76, Ferndale, March 9. Smith was the former president of WEHCO Newspapers and the Arkansas DemocratGazette. He was a key player in the newspaper war between the Arkansas Gazette and the Arkansas Democrat.

Smith started at age 19 as proof-runner at the El Dorado News-Times, working his way up to advertising director, then general manager of the News-Times and its sister publication the Camden News.

He became advertising manager of the Arkansas Democrat in 1974 and its vice president and general manager in 1982.

Paul Greenberg

Peggy Johnson

Paul Greenberg, 84, Little Rock, April 6.

Greenburg was a nationally syndicated columnist, a former editorial page editor for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and for three decades was an editorial writer for the Pine Bluff Commercial. While at the Commercial, Greenburg won the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing in 1969 for his editorials on civil rights. He was a Pulitzer finalist again in 1978 and 1986. Greenberg was the first to dub then-Gov. Bill Clinton “Slick Willie.” He authored three books, and he often signed his columns as “Inky Wretch.”

Peggy Lucille Johnson, 89, Piggott, April 9. Johnson was a features writer and columnist in northeast Arkansas.

Johnson was a staff writer and columnist for the Blytheville Courier-News for more than 10 years before moving to Clay County. In 1984 she became a columnist and reporter for the Piggott Times and the Clay County Democrat, and later the Clay County Times-Democrat. Her column “From These Hills’’ entertained northeast Arkansas readers for more than three decades.

“Bicycle Charlie”

Charles Nathan Wallace, 86, Brinkley, March 25. Affectionately known in Brinkley as “Bicycle Charlie,” Wallace for more than 50 years rode around town on his bicycle selling first the Brinkley Argus then the Monroe County Herald, retiring in 2018 as his health declined. Described as a “longtime paper boy, all-around helper and one of Brinkley’s most loved people” and “a staple in the life of each newspaper and the families who ran them,” Wallace was gifted his bicycles by community members.

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Myra Burhmester

Myra Lou Blevins Buhrmester, 75, Jonesboro, April 17. Buhrmester worked for the Jonesboro Sun for 42 years, most recently as society editor, penning the “Social Whirligig” column about regional society happenings. She started at the paper in the 1970s as an assistant to the then-society editor. Buhrmester also wrote birth announcements, wedding and engagement announcements and was the unofficial party planner and event organizer for The Sun. She also served on the Jonesboro Parks and Recreation and Salvation Army boards.

Dorothy Stuck

Dorothy Davis Stuck, 100, Little Rock, July 1. Stuck was a trailblazing journalist who was a founding member of Arkansas Press Women. Along with her husband she owned and published The Marked Tree Tribune, the Trumann Democrat and the Lepanto News-Record in Poinsett County. She was editor of the Marked Tree Tribune for more than two decades starting in 1950. Stuck was an APW president and two-time Press Woman of the Year. She also co-authored a biography of influential newspaper publisher, editor and journalist Roberta Fulbright.

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Rickey Johnson

Rickey Edward Johnson, 69, Hazen, April 29. Johnson was an advertising salesman and office manager for the Grand Prairie Herald in Hazen for more than a decade. Johnson was retired from Frito-Lay, and he was a past president of the Hazen School Board. He also volunteered as a coach for multiple youth sports in Hazen.

Robert Shaw

Robert L. Shaw, 79, Little Rock, July 15.

Shaw was an Associated Press veteran who served as bureau chief in three states, including Arkansas. Shaw worked at the Arkansas Gazette before writing for the AP’s bureau in Little Rock. He also worked for the AP in Memphis, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi, before being promoted to bureau chief in Oklahoma City and then promoted to bureau chief in Indianapolis. He became Arkansas’s0.

Edmond Freeman

Edmond Wroe Freeman III, 94, Little Rock, May 3. Freeman was publisher of the Pine Bluff Commercial at the time of its sale to Donrey Media in 1986, after his family had owned the newspaper for more than a century. His great-grandfather founded the newspaper in 1881. Freeman began working there as a reporter in the 1950s. In 1960, he and his brother took over operation of the publication. His obituary noted that Freeman “became known for training and mentoring young journalists who went on to top positions at large-market newspapers.”

Sam Pierce

Samuel J. Pierce, 35, Hot Springs Village, July 17. Pierce was a reporter and paginator for the zoned editions of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. He was also the communications director for First United Methodist Church in Benton and a former correspondent for the trucking industry magazine, The Trucker.

In college at Arkansas State University, Pierce served as editor of the student newspaper, the Herald.

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Max Heath

Max Heath, 75, Shelbyville, Kentucky, July 28. Heath was the National Newspaper Association’s postal service consultant to newspapers across the country, including in Arkansas. He was the go-to source for newspaper publishers’ postal service questions, and was a frequent speaker at Arkansas Press Association conventions.

He became head of NNA’s postal policy in 1989 the same time he joined the U.S. Postmaster General’s Mailers Technical Advisory Committee, helping guide the technical and logistical initiatives that have preserved affordable mail delivery options for community newspapers.

Lisa Lee

Terry Stanfill

Terry Gene Stanfill, 67, Gentry, Aug. 7. Stanfill was a talented photographer, contributing his work to the Westside Eagle Observer in Benton Country and other northwest Arkansas newspapers.

He was an avid wildlife photographer, often sharing natural scenes in the area to encourage their preservation. Besides contributing photographs to local and regional publications, Stanfill had a career as a chemist for the SWEPCO Flint Creek electric power plant. He was also instrumental in the creation and construction of the Eagle Watch Nature Trail in Gentry.

Amy Buckholtz

Amy Grace Buckholtz, 48, Little Rock, Aug. 18. A Pine Bluff native who studied at Hendrix College and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Buckholtz worked as a clerk in the newsroom at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette since 2016.

Aaron Brand

Randall Loyd

Lisa Lee, 52, Los Angeles, California, Aug. 20. Lee was a country music industry executive and former journalist. A native of Cabot, Lee earned a degree in journalism from the University of Arkansas, and worked as a reporter for the Cabot StarHerald before moving to broadcasting.

She worked for The Nashville Network and Country Music Television, then was hired by the Academy of Country Music in Los Angeles, rising through its ranks to become Senior Vice President of Creative and Content. Lee was a member of the Writers Guild of America.

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Randall Wayne Loyd, 78, Morrilton, Sept. 16. Loyd was a former advertising salesperson for the Petit Jean Country Headlight and a retired Morrilton Fire Department captain. He worked for the Headlight for about 35 years, contributing photography and developing film in addition to ad sales. Loyd also served as a Morrilton city alderman.

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Aaron Brand, 50, Texarkana, Oct. 1.

Brand was a features writer covering the arts and other areas at the Texarkana Gazette for almost 20 years. He had a master’s of fine arts in creative writing from Eastern Washington University, and was teaching composition and literature courses online to University of ArkansasCossatot students as an adjunct professor while planning a creative writing program for the school. Brand, a Chicago native, also covered sports and wrote about the COVID-19 pandemic during his time at the Texarkana Gazette.

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Mike Trimble

Garrick Feldman

INDUSTRY QUOTE “I’m 52 years old, which means I’m of an age where my reading habits are more or less set. I read plenty of stuff online but I rely on pretty traditional sources. I’m a newspaper reader, whether in hand or on my iPad.”

— Michael Wilbon Mike Trimble, 78, Denton, Texas, Nov. 20. Trimble was an Arkansas-born writer who had a 48-year career as a reporter and editor in Arkansas and Texas, including jobs at the Texarkana Gazette, Arkansas Gazette, Arkansas Times, Pine Bluff Commercial, Arkansas DemocratGazette and Denton Record-Chronicle.

He won several national awards, including a 2006 award from the National Society of Newspaper Editors for the best editorials in the country. A 1985 Arkansas Times story he wrote, “Memoirs of a Miner,” won a national sports writing award and was included in Sporting News’ 1895 anthology.

LET US KNOW Garrick Feldman, 73, Jacksonville, Dec. 5. Feldman was the publisher and founder of Jacksonville’s The Leader newspaper.

In his 34 years at the helm, he grew The Leader to the largest non-daily newspaper in Arkansas. The eldest son of Holocaust survivors, Feldman was born in Hungary but fled to the United States in 1957. Raised in Chicago, Feldman moved to Arkansas with his wife and founded The Leader in 1987.

The newspaper has won countless awards, including the APA’s General Excellence award for 13 of the past 14 years.

We want to know about your new hires, retires and promotions!

Send your staffing changes to info@arkansaspress.org to be updated online and included in the Arkansas Publisher Weekly.

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New Ye !

FROM THE APA STAFF

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December 30, 2021

Tom Kennedy Jim White Jr. of McGehee dies James, Sr. retired from the newspaper business in 1992, passing duties along to Jim and Tom. Tom would eventually leave to become the publisher of the AdvanceMonticellonian, leaving Jim and Arlene to run the Times-News until they sold the newspaper to their niece Rachel Denton Freeze in 2016.

White began volunteering with the McGehee Police Department in 1996. He retired from the newspaper and officially joined the department full-time in 1999.

He was named Chief of Police in 2004 and served as Chief under three mayors before retiring again in February 2021.

Thomas Daniels Kennedy Sr. of North Little Rock died on December 19, 2021, at the age of 66. A native of Beckley, West Virginia, Tom was a 1974 graduate of Augusta Military Academy and a 1982 graduate of the University of Tennessee.

He was also a member of the Navy and Army National Guard.

Tom was known as having the “gift of gab” and worked in advertising sales. He was the marketing manager at The Times in North Little Rock in the 1990s, and his experience and knack for business relationships helped the newspaper grow to be the largest weekly in the state at time.

He later worked as an account executive for magazine publisher Publishing Concepts Incorporated in Little Rock until his retirement.

A devout catholic, he was an active member of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and School in North Little Rock, serving both on Parish Council and School Board.

A brother, David T. Kennedy III, predeceased him. He is survived by his wife of 26 years, Rose Wells Kennedy, sons Thomas Kennedy Jr. and Nicholas Kennedy, daughter-in law Tara Kennedy, brother Michael Kennedy, and two grandchildren.

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James Pleasant “Jim” White, Jr., age 68 of McGehee, died December 25, 2021.

He was born in Warren, Arkansas to the late James P. White, Sr. and the late Marion Love Byrd. The family moved to McGehee when his father purchased the McGehee Times in 1973. The Times merged with the Dermott News in the late 1970s and Jim and his brother Tom White worked alongside their father at the newspaper.

He married Arlene Coulter White in 1980, and they worked together at the McGeheeDemott Times-News for many years.

White also volunteered with many other organizations including the McGehee Chamber of Commerce and the McGehee Beautification Committee, and was past President of the McGehee Industrial Foundation.

Survivors include his wife Arlene; sister and brother-in-law Fran and Roger Childress of McGehee, brother and sister-in-law Tom and Susan White of Monticello, and sister and brother-in-law Ann and Mike Callison of Benton; sistersin-law Brenda Denton of McGehee and Phyllis Wall of Monticello and numerous nieces, nephews, great-nieces and greatnephews.

Funeral services were held Wednesday, December 29, 2021.

Input from publishers sought Finding business model solutions for weekly newspapers is the top priority of 2022 for a multi-state team of journalism researchers, state newspaper association directors and journalists.

To do so, they need weekly newspaper publishers from across the nation to fill out this 5-minute survey giving input on what they think the industry’s future business model should be. The link to the survey is here: https://tinyurl.com/weeklymodel.

Those who complete the survey by January 23 can enter a drawing to win a $100 gift card.

The research team is led by Teri Finneman, a journalism professor at the University of Kansas, and also includes the South Dakota Newspaper Association, the Kansas Press Association and journalism researchers at the University of 7

Colorado Boulder, University of Minnesota and University of Tennessee.

Finneman, who studied how COVID-19 impacted community journalism in the Midwest, said the upheaval of the pandemic was a turning point in needing to address the industry’s business model problem.

The team will spend the next year working on surveys and focus groups for publishers and readers to create sample business model strategies. “We know there will not be a one-size-fits all solution, which is why it’s critical that we hear from as many publishers as possible to know what can work and what can’t,” said Finneman. “We have a stellar team that knows community journalism working on this project and hope we can make a difference.”

December 30, 2021

Guest Column: Managing is not binary

By Doug Phares | for Editor & Publisher Win or lose, black or white, on or off.

Whatever the metric, a lot of management advice is wrapped up in binary thinking.

We’ve all read the advice books and viral LinkedIn posts about the secret to winning, how to beat the competition and other buzzy phrases that tell us that if we’re not winning, we’re losing.

Now, I don’t hate that idea. Personally, I’d love to live in a world where I can choose between Option A or Option B and when I pick right, always end up in the winner’s seat. But that has never been how business works.

Instead, managing is a constant juggling act, where you’re trying to get your organization, your team and yourself to the place you want them to be. And as you work on getting to that place, you’ll often find that that goal you’ve been working toward isn’t actually what you want. Situations change, goals shift, and suddenly the goalpost isn’t anywhere near where you expected.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you should never set any goals or target certain metrics. They’re great tools for measuring what does and doesn’t work in your favor.

But it’s December, and I’d bet when checking end-of-the-year numbers, the situation is substantially more complicated than “we won” or “we lost.”

While it’s easy to think in simple, binary terms, any executive knows that that isn’t how it really works. Instead, the things that come across your desk — concepts to consider, targets to set, projects to green light — are all about judgments.

And judgment requires seeking out input, allocating resources to your team, and evaluating the risks and rewards of a potential next step.

All of which is to say, there’s the temptation to define success as “making X thing

Arkansas Publisher Weekly

happen” because that’s how we think success is measured and accomplished.

However, I’d suggest that, especially in external communications, we work with a vocabulary that allows for more shades of grey. Whether talking to the public, shareholders or your team members, it’s important not to treat one metric as the beall-end-all. As tennis player Arthur Ashe famously said, “Success is a journey, not a destination.”

To step outside of my comfort zone and make a foray into the world of sports analogies, consider it as a game of football.

Teams don’t win by scoring a touchdown with every throw — they win by gaining yards and stacking up the little successes until you’ve got points on the board, then doing it all over again. No coach starts a game by telling the players, “If we score 17 points, we win.” The path to success is ongoing, and it’s about a process rather than a singular goal.

So, as you’re looking over your data at the end of the year, you’re probably noticing trajectories of the last year that did and/ or didn’t help your business. I suggest giving yourself and your team the latitude of considering your progress directionally.

Did you get the first down? Move toward a touchdown? If you can see that you’re moving in the right direction, then don’t throw everything aside because you didn’t “win” in the way you’d hoped.

As we think in terms of trajectories, it’s an opportunity to look toward the future. What path do you want to build on, and where do you need to see even more progress next year? If you didn’t hit your big picture goals this year, take a closer look at things that gained ground, even if they weren’t quite enough. Can you reinforce those areas with extra resources?

Conversely, there are probably areas

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where you invested some time or money that didn’t move you in the direction you want to go. What happens if you allocate those resources into an area that made some forward ground this past year?

Reinforce the efforts that are working and kill off some that aren’t. Don’t get stuck in the invested-capital fallacy. Some things just don’t work.

A win is never going to be the big, gamechanging win. And a loss isn’t always a lost cause. Humans don’t exist in binary terms like that, and a little-known insider tidbit is that our customers, our teams and ourselves are all human. So instead of focusing on binary winning or losing as you close out the year, devote yourself to identifying what worked in 2021, even in little ways, and find new opportunities in 2022 to grow that little victory into a larger success.

In this column, I recommend books I’ve read that have enriched or altered my view of the world. So, I’m closing out my column for the year by encouraging everyone to pick up “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson.

Not only is she an experienced journalist and a uniquely talented writer, but as a manager, I think there’s a lot to be gained by a better understanding of how the world around us helps and hinders the people with whom we manage and work. This isn’t a column for politics or social issues, but there is a real experiential value added in being able to better understand the world in which you live and work.

Doug Phares is the former CEO of the Sandusky News Group. He currently serves as managing director of Silverwind Enterprises, which owns and provides management services to small businesses. He can be reached at doug@ silverwind.biz.

December 30, 2021

APA encourages its members to contact Senator Tom Cotton and ask for support of the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act. Journalism is critical to a functioning democracy, and the price of inaction - the disappearance of local news - is too great.

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December 30, 2021