Appellate Court reinstates Corporate Transparency Act reporting requirements
Guest Column:
Ad-libs: I shot an ad into the air 7
By John Foust
Arkansas Press Association PUBLISHER WEEKLY
Remembering those the Arkansas news industry lost in 2024
In this special year-end issue of Arkansas Publisher Weekly, we remember those connected to APA and Arkansas journalism who died in 2024 and whose legacies will live on through the lives they touched.
William Thomas Taylor, Sr., 95, Little Rock, March 5. Taylor started at the then-Arkansas Democrat as a paperboy at age 13 in 1941. He worked in construction at Oak Ridge, Tennessee through the war years, then returned to the newspaper in 1945. Taylor graduated from Little Rock University with honors in Psychology while working fulltime in the circulation department. Taylor received APA’s Golden 50 Service Award in 1994.
Taylor retired from the Arkansas DemocratGazette twice: first in 2009 as state circulation manager, then again in 2015 from his position as treasurer at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette employee credit union.
William Alvin “Bill” Whitworth, 87, Conway, March 8. Raised in Little Rock, Whitworth attended the University of Oklahoma, where was editor of OU’s student newspaper, the Oklahoma Daily, and worked for the Arkansas Democrat. He started at the Arkansas Gazette in January 1960, then joined the New York Herald Tribune in late 1963, where he covered city and national politics and the beginnings of the student anti-war movement. Whitworth also covered Bobby Kennedy’s 1964 Senate race and the Beatles’ first two trips to the U.S. He joined The New Yorker in 1966 and in 1973 became an associate editor. Whitworth joined The Atlantic in 1980, where he served as editor-in-chief for 20 years. He returned to Arkansas in 2000, retaining the title of editor emeritus of the magazine.
Richard Palmer Portis, M.D., 79, Little Rock, March 31. Dr. Portis was raised in Hamburg, where he was named to the Arkansas All State Band for four consecutive years, was first-chair All State Band trombonist in his junior and senior years, and graduated valedictorian of his class. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Central Arkansas and was later a 1974 graduate of the University of Arkansas School of Medicine.
Before entering medical school, Portis had been an editor and reporter at the Crossett News Observer, the Pine Bluff Commercial and the Arkansas Gazette and had served as an information officer in the U.S. Army Reserve.
Bill Whitworth
Richard Portis
Bill Taylor
Remembering
Dee Card
Linda Dee Rooney Card, 69, Caddo Gap, April 18. A native of Kiefer, Oklahoma, Card was a long-time contributor to the Montgomery County News through her weekly column, “Norman News with Dee Card.” Under the name Dee Rooney she was the author of the 2023 novel, “Annie’s Heart,” and had just published her second novel, “The Devil’s Bathtub,” on March 8. A former Arkansas Tobacco Control Agent, Card had also served as a member of the Caddo Gap Volunteer Fire Department and was a member of the Diamond Writers Association.
Vivian Lee Asbury Heyl, 74, Brookland, April 18. Heyl was born in Peoria, Illinois and graduated from Mammoth Spring High School. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English at Arkansas State University. An educator by profession, she also operated
Jonesboro Computer Services for many years with her husband, Larry Heyl, and worked several years as a proofreader at The Times Dispatch in Walnut Ridge. She was the editor of deltaboogie.com and in 1991, with her husband, founded Blues Fest at Craighead Forest Park, which they ran for 25 years.
Alice Stewart, 58, Alexandria, Va., May 18. A native of Atlanta, Georgia, Stewart held a degree in broadcast news and political science from the University of Georgia. She joined KARK-TV in Little Rock in 1998 and served as a news reporter and weekend anchor until 2005, when she transitioned into politics with a job as press secretary in then-Gov. Mike Huckabee’s administration. Stewart later worked as communications director for the presidential campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz, Gov. Huckabee, Sen. Rick Santorum and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann She was also a 2020 fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School and a long-time conservative political commentator with CNN.
Craig
Woodall
Sidney Craig Woodall, 86, Malvern, May 22. Woodall started as a carrier for the Malvern Daily Record at age 11. At age 15 he worked for Malvern Amusement Company as projectionist, and later served as assistant manager for the Ritz Theater, the Joy Theater and Malvern Drive-in Theater, and also the Sunset Drive-in Theater in Hot Springs. Around 1956 he returned to the Malvern Daily Record, working in circulation for a short time, after which he was promoted to advertising manager, a position he held for 23 years. He left the Daily Record to become advertising coordinator for Gibson’s Discount/Kirchoff Stores, Inc. He then worked as assistant manager at Davis Lumber Company for 17 years, until his retirement in 2002.
Peggy Barentine
Peggy June Barentine, 88, Jacksonville, June 1. The mother of APA Director of
Alice Stewart
Vivian Heyl
Remembering
Continued from page 2
Operations Terri Cobb, Barentine married her high school sweetheart, Buford Barentine on May 27, 1955. She retired from Dillard’s Department Store after working many years in mortgage banking and was a former member of the North Little Rock chapter of Beta Sigma Phi. Following retirement she and her husband moved to Navarre Beach, where she served as class secretary at Midway Baptist Church in Gulf Breeze, Florida, before returning to Arkansas.
Derwood Brett
Derwood Brett, 76, Mount Ida, June 16. Brett got his start in the advertising department at the Minden Press Herald while studying journalism at Louisiana Tech University. After graduation he served as advertising manager, then business manager for the Press Herald. In 1973 he was named publisher of the Washington County News in Chipley, Florida. In 1976 he served as editor and publisher of the Mena Star, a position he held for more than a decade. Brett joined the APA board of directors in 1982 and was APA President in 1989. In 1987, he was named publisher of Active Age magazine in Little Rock, then in 1988 became general manager of the Helena Daily World. In 1991, he returned to Louisiana as publisher of the Minden Press Herald. After he left the newspaper business he worked as communications manager for the Electric Cooperatives of Arkansas, then as manager of Clay County Electric Cooperative before retiring to Mount Ida.
June Biber Freeman, 95, Scottsdale, Ariz., July 4. The wife of Edmond Wroe Freeman, III, Freeman met her future husband as a graduate student at the University of Chicago. The couple then moved to Pine Bluff, where Edmond published the Pine Bluff Commercial with his brother. In the early 1960s, she led the effort to create the Little Firehouse Community Arts Center, which grew to become the Southeast Arkansas Arts and Science Center, the predecessor of the Arts & Science Center for Southeast Arkansas. From 1975 to 1980, she worked as director of state services for the Arkansas Arts Center, where she transformed a large van into a mobile art gallery for residents of small towns and rural areas. Freeman also wrote the “Artline” column in the Pine Bluff Commercial From 1986 to 1995.
Rose Gladner
Rose Clemmons Gladner, 60, Hot Springs, July 30. The wife of Arkansas Broadcasters Association Executive Director Neal Gladner, Gladner worked for nearly 30 years in sales, mainly in print and broadcast media. She began her career in the 1990s at Arkansas Business Publishing Group in Little Rock and joined the staff of the Arkansas Times as a social media account executive in 2012. In 2015, she joined Brand Energy & Infrastructure Alliance as a media manager, then moved to the marketing team at Magic Springs in 2017. She joined Vowell Inc./AY Magazine in 2018 as an account executive. She also volunteered for Red Cross disaster relief services and the Alzheimer’s Association.
Jessie Elizabeth Christner Bain, 99, Hot Springs, September 30. A native of Flint, Michigan, Bain was retired from The Sentinel-Record in Hot Springs, where she worked for many years in the advertising department. She was a founding member, a trustee, a Sunday school teacher, the building fund bookkeeper, a church librarian, a member of the Grace Academy School Board and a teacher at Grace Apostolic Church. An award-winning photographer, Bain was also a member of the Business and Professional Woman’s Club.
June Freeman
Jessie Bain
Remembering
Continued from page 3
Dan Brawner
Daniel Macon Brawner, 74, Wynne, October 21. A native of Eupora, Mississippi, Brawner was a graduate of Wynne High School and of Christian Brothers University in Memphis. He was a former editor of the Poinsett County Democrat-Tribune in Trumann, and also served as a staff writer for the Wynne Progress, at which he was a consistent winner of the APA Better Newspaper Editorial Contest. Over his career he also taught English literature in the Forrest City School District, wrote a book, “The Ridge: The Whisper of the Leaves,” under the name D. Macon Brawner and was the current pastor at Pine Tree Baptist Church in Colt.
Susie Roberts
Shirley Ann “Susie” Minton Roberts, 80, Little Rock, October 22. Roberts earned her degree from Arkansas State Teachers College, now the University of Central Arkansas, in 1964. Roberts began teaching
in the Pulaski County Special School District, first at Mabelvale High School then in 1966 at the new John L. McClellan High School. There she taught speech and journalism for 21 years and founded the award-winning student newspaper, the Lion-Up. In 1987, Roberts moved into central office administration, where she worked as PCSSD spokesperson, volunteer coordinator and school board liaison until her retirement in 1999. In 2007, she was honored as Volunteer of the Year for the Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute.
Dixie Martin
Dixie Lee Williamson Martin, 86, Sherwood, October 26. Born in Bastrop, La., Martin held a degree in English from Louisiana Baptist College. A lifelong high school English and journalism teacher, she taught at Jacksonville High School early in her career and finished her career at Sylvan Hills High School, where she was the longtime faculty advisor to the student newspaper and yearbook staff. In addition to her duties at the high school she was invited to teach classes and workshops at UALR and Ball State University. Martin was named the 1994 Arkansas Press Association Journalism Educator of the Year.
Jim Williamson
Jim A. Williamson, 74, Ashdown, November 4. Born in Ranger, Texas, Williamson started his career at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. In 1976, he moved to Ashdown and began working for the Little River News. He purchased the News in 1978 and served as editor, photographer and co-publisher until 2005, when he sold the newspaper. In 2006, he joined the Texarkana Gazette as the Southwest Arkansas reporter and worked there until his retirement in May 2019.
Williamson won numerous awards from APA, North & East Texas Press Association and Texas Associated Press Managing Editors for reporting and photography, as well as several National Press Association awards, Texarkana Gazette Employee of the Year 2007, W.E. Hussman Employee of the Year for Palmer Newspapers in 2007, and received a Arkansas Senate Citation in 2008 for Outstanding News Reporting and Photography.
See REMEMBERING Page 5
Remembering
Continued from page 4
Edward Michael Freeman, 82, Bella Vista, November 13.
A lifelong newspaperman, Freeman began his career at the Decatur Daily in Decatur, Alabama before becoming editor of The Montgomery Advertiser and Alabama Journal in Montgomery, Alabama. He then became editor of the Selma Times Journal in Selma, Alabama before becoming publisher of the Raton Range in Raton, New Mexico. In 1987, he and his wife, Barbara Williams Freeman, purchased the Pea Ridge Times of Northeast Benton County, fulfilling his lifelong dream of newspaper ownership. The Freemans published The Times until 1999, when they sold the newspaper to Community Publishers Publishers Inc., in Bentonville.
Bob Holt, 65, Fayetteville, December 4. Arkansas Democrat-Gazette sports reporter Holt had covered the Razorbacks since 1981, and was known nationwide for his in-depth and insightful commentary. A graduate of the University of Missouri, he also covered the Dallas Cowboys and the Southwest Conference in the 1980s before returning to Fayetteville in 1991. Holt was named Arkansas Sportswriter of the Year four times and in 2022 was inducted into the Arkansas Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame. He was a member of the Football Writers Association of America and served on the board of the U.S. Basketball Writers Association. He was also voted for the Heisman Trophy and the AP Top 25 basketball poll.
-30- Bill Lewis
Bill Lewis, whose career at the former Arkansas Gazette spanned more than three decades, died Tuesday, December 24, at his home in Little Rock. He was 95.
A full obituary will be in next week’s Arkansas Publisher Weekly.
-30Werner Trieschmann
Award-winning playwright John Werner Trieschmann IV, who over his career wrote for Spectrum Weekly, the Arkansas DemocratGazette and The Arkansas Times, died Thursday, December 26. He was 60.
A full obituary will be in next week’s Arkansas Publisher Weekly
Father of APA’s Director of Operations passes away at age 88
Orville Buford
Barentine, Jr. of Jacksonville, father of APA Director of Operations Terri Cobb, died on Wednesday, December 18. He was 88.
Born in Cabot to the late O.B. and Emily Pruett Barentine, he graduated from North Little Rock High School and married his high school sweetheart, Peggy June, on the same day: May 27, 1955. He served in the United States Air Force and Arkansas
National Guard for 24 years and was assigned to the 305th Bomb Wing in Tampa, Florida and Peru, Indiana. He often spoke of his deployment in Marrakesh in Morocco, North Africa. After participating in Reforger 86 in Germany, he was awarded the Army Commendation Medal for his leadership and was promoted to Master Sergeant E8.
Barentine worked for North Little Rock Electric while attending evening classes at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1975. Following graduation he worked in human resources for Entergy (formally Arkansas Power & Light) until retiring in 1989. He and Peggy enjoyed retirement in Navarre
Beach, Florida for many years before returning home to Arkansas in 2012. He served as a deacon at the Rose City Church of Christ in North Little Rock and was a member of Midway Baptist Church in Gulf Breeze and Marshall Road Baptist Church in Jacksonville.
In addition to his parents, he was preceded in death by his wife Peggy and his brother Gene Barentine. Left to cherish his memory are sons Ron Barentine and Toby Barentine of North Little Rock, and daughter Terri (George) Cobb of Cabot, three grandchildren and seven greatgrandchildren. Services were held Monday, December 23 in North Little Rock.
Mike Freeman
Bob Holt
Buford Barentine
Slimp to host webinar on “Improving the Design of Your Newspaper to Increase Readership & Revenue”
Well-known newspaper design guru Kevin Slimp will host a live webinar on newspaper design on Thursday, January 23 at 2 p.m.
“One of the consistent themes in the post-pandemic newspaper is improving design,” Slimp said. “Community newspapers are bucking the trend of metro papers and investing in growing readership, which in turn grows advertising revenue. A key element of growing readership is making the design of your paper more reader-friendly, drawing the reader rather than turning the reader away.”
One of Slimp’s most requested services is improving the design of community newspapers. In this 70-minute session Slimp will demonstrate ways to make your newspaper much more inviting to potential readers and advertisers, including:
• New design styles vs. Old design styles
• Creating cleaner pages
• Using up-to-date fonts and getting rid of outdated fonts
• Creating styles for your new design
• Photo and story placement on the page
• Elements that carry from page to page
• Proper (and improper) use of color on pages
The cost to attend is $79. Register at newspaperacademy.com/webinar/2501/.
OFFICE SPACE AVAILABLE
Appellate Court reinstates Corporate Transparency Act reporting requirements
On Monday the Fifth Circuit Appellate Court ruled in favor of the federal government and reversed a nationwide injunction against the Corporate Transparency Act. This restores the CTA’s reporting requirements which will once again be back in full effect.
The injunction that had been in place was ordered by a Texas court finding that the CTA is “likely unconstitutional” and that Congress went beyond its authority in enacting the statute. The government quickly requested that the injunction be stayed pending a final ruling.
More than a dozen organizations and 25 states filed amicus briefs urging the Fifth Circuit to keep the injunction in place, arguing that doing so would give millions of businesses more time to learn about their new filing obligations while giving the courts time to make a final ruling.
As a practical matter, lifting the injunction this close to the filing deadline also presents a logistical challenge for countless businesses who are now once again subject to the penalties for failure to file. Approximately 20 million entities have not yet submitted their filings and now have just a few days to do so.
The National Federation of Independent Business is expected to appeal the Fifth Circuit Court decision. Reports indicate an expedited appeal hearing on the stay is already being prepared, but that hearing is unlikely to occur before the end of the year.
Businesses should consult their tax preparers to determine the best course of action. Filing information can be found at boiefiling.fincen.gov/.
Guest Column: Ad-libs: I shot an ad into the air
By John Foust
When I was a kid, my family went on a family vacation to the mountains of North Carolina. For a couple of nights, we stayed at a motel which had a play area with a few activities for children.
The thing I most remember was a small archery range, which consisted of a couple of straw-filled targets, a bow and an arrow. One of the motel employees – probably a college student with a summer job – was there to make sure no one got hurt. Along the way, he taught a few basics about shooting a bow. The only advice I recall was to make a T-shape with the arm that is extended to hold the bow and the arm which is bent at the elbow to pull back the string. The bowstring arm should be straight back, not against the archer’s side.
I think about that little archery range every now and then, because I’ve been relating advertising to archery for more than 30 years. Archery provides us with a good comparison – and an easily understood visual image – to share with advertisers. When you narrow the subject to three elements – the bow, the arrow and the target – you have the key ingredients of an advertising campaign. Use the bow to shoot the arrow at the target. It’s that simple.
Let’s take a closer look at this comparison:
1. The target represents the target audience – a specific group of consumers who fit the profile of likely buyers of certain products or services. It would be ridiculous for an advertiser to try to aim an arrow at more than one target at a time. The object of archery is to hit the bullseye on one target.
Likewise, the object of advertising is to reach a clearly defined target audience.
2. The arrow represents the message. An arrow with a bent shaft will veer off course and probably fall to the ground. An arrow with a blunt end might hit the target, but won’t stick. And an arrow with
faulty fletching (the fin-like stabilizers at the back) will wobble its way into the ground.
Like an arrow needs to be straight and true in order to make its way to the target, an advertising message should exhibit the timetested principles of effective advertising.
That means a compelling offer, a strong headline, relevant illustrations, audience-centered copy, an identifiable logo, and specific purchasing information.
3. The bow represents the delivery system – in our case, print and digital newspapers. In order to function properly, the bow should be of the right design and construction, in the form of market coverage, creative guidance, high production standards, and superb customer service. From the advertiser’s perspective, it’s crucial to build in an adequate advertising budget, a solid media plan, and a consistent strategy.
Each of these elements is crucial to the success of an advertising effort. The good news is that you are in position to positively influence decisions on all three. Do that – and you’re on your way to bullseye results.
(c) Copyright 2024 by John Foust. All rights reserved.
John Foust of Greensboro, North Carolina has conducted training programs for thousands of newspaper advertising professionals. Many ad departments are using his training videos to save time and get quick results from in-house training. Email for information: john@johnfoust.com.
