Arkansas Press Association Publisher Weekly

Dardanelle Post-Dispatch and Yell County Record managing editor and co-publisher Mary Mae Fowler Fisher, of Danville, died Saturday afternoon, July 22, 2023. She was 73.

Along with husband David Fisher, she coowned four newspapers: the Yell County Record in Danville, the Dardanelle PostDispatch, the Conway County Petit Jean Country Headlight in Morrilton and the Perry County Petit Jean Country Headlight in Perryville.

Both APA Past Presidents, the Fishers had just participated in the Friday evening gavel-passing and Saturday morning Past Presidents’ Breakfast at the 2023 APA Convention.

Her newspaper career, which spanned more than five decades, started in 1965 with an after-school job with the Yell County Record in Danville.

In a 2014 interview with APA upon her installation as President, Fisher remembered the early days. “Initially I was in charge of getting the papers mailed on Thursday afternoon. Then, the rest of the week I finishing up job work, like wrapping and delivering. The next thing I did was a society column – I’d call people and see who had visited who.” She also recalled cleaning the Linotype machine.

At the time of her death, she was serving on the Arkansas Newspaper Foundation board, a position she accepted in 2007. She served also on the National

See Fisher Page 2