Arkansas Publisher Weekly: August 24, 2023

Farkleberry bush dedicated in memory of late cartoonist Fisher

Guest Column:

If we lose the free press, we cease to be a democracy

By Margaret Atwood

Publishing community newspaper labor of love for Killian

Community newspapers across Arkansas and throughout the nation obviously come in diverse forms, style and sense of purpose. No doubt the principal factor relates to the goals of each paper’s owner, whether it be a corporate or individual publisher.

With that in mind, Larry Killian of the South Arkansas Sun in Hampton is unique.

“I didn’t get in this to make money,” said Killian, who purchased the newspaper in late 2015 for $12,000. The newspaper actually had been shut down for three months before he reopened it.

“I just always thought it would be fun to publish a newspaper,” Killian said. “Hampton is a county seat, and we need a newspaper.”

Killian also has another major focus in his operation – giving employment opportunities to the young people of his community.

In fact, on the day of this interview, he was working with a high school senior, training her in the various tasks needed to publish a community newspaper.

“I have employed several seniors over the past several years, and I can tell you that she has already shown a great deal of aptitude on only her third day on the job,” he said.

Killian said many of the students in his small rural community come from disadvantaged backgrounds and need someone to mentor them, help them learn job and business skills and focus on a better future.

“I guess some of this is my background as a

youth minister,” Killian said. “These students have a lot of potential, and I like to give them some opportunities. That is what I really enjoy, and it is really my number one goal. I just like to treat them as if they were my own child.”

Killian was referencing his other, and main, profession as worship and discipling pastor at Parkers Chapel First Baptist Church in El Dorado. It is a position he has held for the past 15 years.

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Larry Killian outside the Sun offices in Hampton. Photo credit Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Killian

Continued from page 1

Holding the full-time church position allows him to devote time and energy to pursue his newspaper endeavor.

“It’s enjoyable and it’s fun,” Killian said. “Sometimes it can be more work than fun. It’s basically a one-man operation. I can’t make a living at it, but possibly someone else could.”

Killian hopes to find a young person in the future who, in essence, will take the newspaper and run with it. “That would be a nice scenario,” he said. “It would probably be a situation in which that person also would have to do something else on the side.” Even if his young newspaper helpers don’t continue in the profession, he enjoys seeing them learn and develop skills that will help them in their future educational and employment pursuits – and several already are proving to be successful. In any case, Killian has no plans to give up on the publication, despite what he terms a “struggle” from time to time.

“I’m not in it to make money,” Killian said. “I’m not looking at any changes. My main goal is to just not have to put any of my money into the operation. I want to break even.”

The Sun generally runs eight pages a week and is printed at Monticello. He said Advance- Monticellonian publisher Tom White has provided technical assistance and advice over the years, and he also appreciates input from what he calls the “Arkansas press community,” newspaper folks from around the state.

Killian has attended Arkansas Press Association meetings and has taken advantage of the organization’s student intern program to augment his reporting capabilities.

The newspaper currently has about 600 subscribers, and Killian said circulation has been consistent. He is considering raising his single copy rate from 75 cents to $1. “Some people keep telling me I definitely need to go to $1,” he said. And he finds it interesting and somewhat humorous that one local man insists on giving him that much each week.

Advertising sales opportunities are limited in Hampton, which has a population of just over 1,000 in a county of less than 5,000 residents. That makes it the least populous county in Arkansas.

“I do have some regular advertisers, and that’s why we have a paper here,” Killian said. “I have enough advertising revenue to pay minimum wage to someone to work with me for a few hours each week.

“I’m not really disappointed in the advertising. I have 15 to 20 good advertisers. These businesses are asked to support all kinds of things and I try not to hit them up too much.”

Legal notices published by the county also are an important

revenue item, Killian noted.

Killian said the local economy is “a real mix,” with a significant number of residents having good jobs in the area and others facing low income and subsequent struggles. “It’s probably just like the rest of the state, and it depends on who you talk to.”

He said one of the biggest problems facing Calhoun County is lack of rental and home purchase opportunities.

Killian’s newspaper philosophy is to take a positive approach. “I really enjoy making it look like we are growing and doing some good things as a community. I want to be boosting the community instead of tearing it down. As far as what I cover, I know what I like, and I think I know what our readers like.

“People tell me they love the paper and appreciate having one,” Killian said. “I guess you could say I am old school. I have cartoons, crossword puzzles and lots of pictures in the paper. Overall, I am happy with what we are doing.”

Killian does have numerous contributors to the newspaper, including information from the local library and the museum. “Sometimes my biggest challenge is to go find something for the front page,” he said with a laugh.

“It’s a lot of fun,” Killian said. “Wherever I go, people see me as the newspaper guy. I have no major complaints about what I am doing.”

In addition to his newspaper work, Killian also has purchased several buildings in downtown Hampton and is involved in renovation projects. He enthusiastically noted a situation in which one young local woman has started a successful business in one of his buildings.

Killian grew up in Forrest City and earned a bachelor’s degree in music from Ouachita Baptist University. He later earned a master’s degree in divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.

His wife Shanna Killian is a special education teacher in the Hampton School District and son Zach Killian is the editor of the Eagle-Democrat in Warren.

Killian is active in working with disaster relief within the Southern Baptist Convention and also serves as Wing Chaplain for the Civil Air Patrol in Arkansas. He is a pilot and flies his own airplane.

In a newspaper environment with many small rural communities underserved or not served at all, the people of Hampton and Calhoun County can look appreciatively to Larry Killian for his personal sacrifice and dedication in keeping them informed on a consistent basis. “It’s not about the money,” is a well-worn and sometimes misleading phrase, but in the case of the South Arkansas Sun in the state’s smallest county, it rings true.

Killian at his desk at the Sun. Photo credit Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

A Greater Voic e

AMPLIFYING THE POWER OF THE PRESS.

Bank OZK proudly supports the Arkansas Press Association (APA) and its vital mission to nurture Arkansas newspapers with the knowledge and resources they need to grow and thrive. As one of the state's most esteemed professional associations for 150 years, the APA has been a powerful voice for freedom of the press. By connecting our communities through authentic and impactful content, we can unlock even greater possibilities.

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michelle.rossow@ozk.com | (501) 471-8475

50-year old Courier returned to Corning by Texas museum APA members participate in

A piece of Corning history has returned home from Texas in the form of a 50-year-old special newspaper edition, according to a recent article in the Clay County Courier.

According to Courier Editor Pam Lowe, the newspaper was contacted by Della Moyer, Secretary and Special Exhibits Coordinator at Freedom Museum USA in Pampa, Texas. Moyer told Lowe a person had come into their history museum and left a 50-year-old Centennial Edition of the Clay County Courier with a volunteer. Moyer soon realized that the newspaper was not from Clay County, Texas, but from Arkansas.

The 1973 special edition commemorates Corning’s centennial. Lowe told to Moyer that finding the Centennial Edition was a happy coincidence as 2023 is the City of Corning’s 150th anniversary.

Other than yellowing of the newsprint, the special edition is in complete and perfect condition with sections A-F intact. According to Lowe, Moyer surmised that given its good condition the newspaper had perhaps been discovered in an estate sale or kept by someone as a memento, but it remains a mystery as to where the special edition came from and who donated it to the Texas museum.

APA Executive Director Ashley Kemp Wimberley moderated a panel discussion on “Leading Your Agency in the New Media Age” at an Arkansas Housing Authority leadership seminar on August 16 at the Red Apple Inn in Heber Springs.

Participating on the panel were Jay Runyan of East Arkansas Broadcasters, Lee McLane of the Beebe News and Jeanette Stewart of the Log Cabin Democrat in Conway.

This 50-year-old edition of the Clay County Courier was recently discovered at a museum in Texas. Photo credit Clay County Courier

Farkleberry bush dedicated in memory of late cartoonist Fisher

A plaque has been installed on the grounds of the Hillary Rodham Clinton Children’s Library & Learning Center in Little Rock at the base of a farkleberry bush donated to the library by Skip Rutherford to commemorate the 100th birthday of the late Arkansas Gazette editorial cartoonist George Fisher.

“Farkleberry” is the common name of a leafy evergreen shrub, also called the “Sparkberry”. The shrub has little to no value in either agriculture or landscaping; however, in Arkansas the farkleberry has been long associated with the late former Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus due to cartoons drawn by Fisher. The shrub’s name has over time become a symbolic term referring to all things unique to Arkansas politics.

According to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas, Gov. Faubus acquired the unofficial nickname “Farkleberry” from Fisher, who used the term to humorously skewer the governor in political cartoons published in the Arkansas Gazette.

In an interview in 2000, Fisher said that the nickname arose from the time Gov. Faubus, who served from 1955 to 1967, was supervising work along the highways in Franklin County, dressed in overalls and carrying an ax to direct workers who were clearing weeds and underbrush from the roadsides.

The governor was driven around to personally identify the ornamental trees, such as dogwoods and redbuds, that he wanted left standing to beautify the roads. Lou Oberste of the Arkansas Parks and Tourism Commission photographed the governor at work that day and published an article listing the trees Faubus saved from the ax. Fisher, unable to resist lampooning Faubus over the event, facetiously added the worthless farkleberry to the list receiving the governor’s pardon. Fisher said he “edited in the word farkleberry, so from then on it became synonymous with Faubus.”

Faubus was said to be good-natured about the ribbing. He called the walking path behind his Huntsville home the “Farkleberry Trail.” In 1967, the Arkansas Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists launched “The Farkleberry Follies,” a live theatrical satire of state news-makers produced to support journalism scholarships. From 1975 until 1988, the Farkleberry Restaurant was located in the Regions Bank building in Little Rock, where several original Fisher cartoons were displayed. The cartoons were later donated to the University of Arkansas Clinton School of Public Service, of which Rutherford is Dean Emeritus.

Caricature of Governor Orval Faubus featuring the farkleberry tree, as drawn by Fisher. Photo credit Encyclopedia of Arkansas, courtesy of the Old State House Museum, Little Rock.

Plaque commemorating Fisher’s Farkleberry on the library grounds. Photo credit Colin Thompson.

Ronald A. Robinson Post Office dedicated in Little Rock

The Ronald A Robinson Post Office was dedicated in the Heights neighborhood of Little Rock on Tuesday in honor of the late Little Rock public relations professional Ron Robinson Robinson, an iconic figure in the Arkansas marketing and advertising community who died in 2018, was a graduate of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. While there, he served as editor of the school newspaper, the Arkansas Traveler, and later, the sports editor of the Arkansas Gazette, covering Razorback sports. He was the former chairman and chief executive officer of Cranford Johnson Robinson Woods advertising agency, now

known as CJRW.

According to an article in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Robinson served on the U.S. Postal Service Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee from 1993 to 2008, including time as the body’s chairman. An avid stamp collector, he was involved in producing more than 1,750 postage stamp issues during his tenure on the committee.

Congressional action is necessary for dedicating a post office. U.S. Rep. French Hill (R-Little Rock) led the legislative effort to rename the building, which received approval from both congressional chambers during the last Congress.

Connecting People and Communities

Ron Robinson stamp designed by Lyuba Bogan.

Rep. French Hill speaks at the dedication of the Ronald A. Robinson Post Office on Tuesday.

Caldwell, former publisher of the Courier-Index, dies at 87

a bachelor of science in home economics in 1956.

After graduation she was recruited to Marianna to teach home economics at Futrell High School. She married Marvin Caldwell, the owner, editor and publisher of the Courier-Index, in 1957, and together they had five children. Dorothy Caldwell contributed articles, columns and features to the newspaper, and she and Marvin, who served as APA President in 1975, attended many APA conventions and events over the 1960s and 1970s.

Dorothy Reddell Caldwell, who with her husband Marvin Caldwell co-owned the Courier-Index in Marianna from 19471985, died on August 13 at her home in Raleigh, North Carolina. She was 87.

A daughter of Thaddys Jefferson “T.J.” and Letha Cisco Reddell, she was born near Cotton Plant in Woodruff County, and grew up with her siblings in a two-bedroom house that had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing until she was well into her teens. She graduated from Cotton Plant High School with honors when she was 16 and earned scholarships to attend the University of Arkansas. While attending UA she was a member of Mortarboard, president of the Four-H House, and vice president and chaplain of Phi Upsilon Omicron, the home economics sorority. As a senior, she was president of the Arkansas Future Teachers of America and traveled the state, as well as to San Francisco and Chicago, in that role. She graduated with

In 1968, unhappy with the quality of the school lunch programs, she returned to the public school system as Director of Food and Nutrition for the Lee County School District, a role she held for 20 years. During that time she earned a Master’s degree in food systems administration from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

She became publisher of the CourierIndex upon the death of her husband in 1983, serving in the role until the family sold the newspaper and its attendant office supply business in 1985.

In 1987 she became the first female president of the Lee County Chamber of Commerce. She was Director of Child Nutrition for the Arkansas Department of Education from 1988 to 1997 before relocating to Washington, D.C., for a fouryear career in with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After that she moved to Raleigh, where she worked for the Department of Health and Human Services and as an adjunct assistant professor for the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

She was president and later a board member of what’s now known as the

School Nutrition Association (SNA) and the School Nutrition Foundation (SNF). She also was on the board for the Arkansans in Coalition Against Hunger and the North Carolina Public Health Foundation, chair of the Arkansas Dietetic Association, a member of the Society of Nutrition Education and Behavior, and president of the Arkansas School Nutrition Association. She received numerous awards over her career, including the Medallion Award from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, the 21st Century Families Award for Enhancing the Quality of Life for Youth and Families from the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service, the Glaxo Smith Kline Child Health Recognition Award, the Good for Kids Award from the North Carolina Pediatric Society, and the SNA’s Gertrude Applebaum Lifetime Achievement Award.

In addition to her parents and husband, she was predeceased by her brothers, Kenneth Howard Reddell and Neal Donald Reddell, and two of her sisters, Patricia Ann Reddell Young and Barbara Reddell. Survivors are her children, Catherine and Bill Eagles of Greensboro, North Carolina, Susan and Rick Farmer of Richmond, Virginia, Janet and Mark Gruchacz of Raleigh, Stephen and Audrey Caldwell of Fayetteville and David and Terrie Caldwell of Morrilton, sisters Peggy Jean Reddell Curbo Rooks and Betty Jo Reddell Jones, 15 grandchildren and 16 great grandchildren.

A memorial service was held on August 18 in Raleigh.

Another service will be held at 11 a.m. on September 23 at First United Methodist Church in Marianna.

Dorothy Caldwell

“How many fingers am I holding up?” says the Party torturer, O’Brian, to the hapless Winston Smith in George Orwell’s 1984. The right answer isn’t “four” or “five.” The right answer is whatever number O’Brian says it is. That is how totalitarians and warlords and authoritarians of all kinds have behaved throughout the ages. Truth is what these folks say it is, not what the facts proclaim. And if you persist in naming a factual number of fingers, then into prison with you, or off with your head. That’s if the totalitarian has already seized power: if he is only in the larval stage, you may simply be accused of spouting fake news.

We find ourselves living in a new age of O’Brians. How many journalists and truth-tellers around the world have been murdered, executed after a quasi-legal process, imprisoned, or exiled? When will we build a memorial wall to them, with all of their names inscribed?

And why do they matter? Because knowing what the power-holders are doing—in our name if it’s a democracy, or in the name of some abstract concept— fatherland, blood, soil, gods, virtue, kingship—is the only way the citizens

Guest Column:

On the murder of journalists and stifling of speech

By Margaret Atwood

of any society can begin to hold those power-holders to account. If a society has any pretense to being other than a serfdom, a free and independent press whose journalists have the right to dig into the factual subsoil of a story is the primary defense against winner-takes-all power creep.

We’re living in the midst of a war being waged against this kind of journalism: the evidence-based, truth-telling kind. In the United States, the president has admitted that he spews out non-truths to keep the journos spinning. His aim is to confuse the public, so that the citizens—not knowing what to believe—will ultimately believe nothing. In a country with no ideals left, high-level lawbreakers and corruption will have free rein. Who can object to those who sell out their country if there isn’t much of a country left?

The signals sent to the rest of the world by the United States have not been lost on authoritarians elsewhere. When it comes to pesky journalists who wash dirty political laundry in public, anything goes. But now there is at least some pushback. As its 2018 “Person of the Year,” TIME Magazine has named four journalists and

one news organization who have suffered for speaking truth. Foremost among them is the murdered Jamal Al-Khashoggi, lately of the Washington Post Maria Ressa has been charged and threatened with imprisonment in the Philippines for writing against that country’s president’s shoot-whoever-I-say policies. Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo were just doing their Reuters job, but were imprisoned for talking about a massacre of Rohingya in Myanmar. And the Capital Gazette of Annapolis, Maryland, shot up by a gunman who killed five. TIME said of them in its essay, “They are representative of a broader fight by countless others around the world—as of December 10, at least 52 journalists have been murdered in 2018— who risk all to tell the story of our time.”

The suppression of writing and writers is naturally of central concern to writers themselves. Budding totalitarians always go after artists and writers early on, for two reasons: they are relatively undefended— there isn’t a huge armed posse of fellow writers acting as their bodyguards—and they have an unpleasant habit of not shutting up. I am among their number, so I

See Guest page 11

If we lose the free press, we cease to be a democracy

Guest

Continued from page 10 have long taken an interest in attempts to censor writers’ work and deprive them of liberty and life.

My active involvement began in the 1970s, during the time of the Argentinian junta and the régime of Augusto Pinochet in Chile. Many journalists, writers and artists were killed at that time, including the major Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. In the 80s I helped found PEN Canada (English), which I headed during its first two years. I have watched as PEN America has expanded its scope, placing the defense of journalists and the free press at the center of its activities.

Gone are the days when all we had to defend was the right of novelists to say the F word in print. Now it appears that it is the right of independent-minded journalists to exist at all that is at issue. Democracies ignore this crisis at their peril: if we lose the free press, we will cease to be democracies.

Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; The MaddAddam Trilogy; The Heart Goes Last; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka International Literary Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award,

E&P’s annual EPPY Awards deadlining soon

September 15 marks the deadline for entering Editor & Publisher magazine’s 2023 EPPY Awards contest.

The EPPY Awards, formerly known as the Best Online Newspaper Services Competition, honor the best in digital news publishing across more than 45 diverse media-related categories, including excellence in college/university digital journalism, with two tiers based on readership size (over or under 1 million unique monthly visitors). This competition is open to all media companies, colleges or businesses that publish news content online.

Websites, blogs, podcasts, videos and images must have been available to the public at any time from September 1, 2022 through August 31, 2023. Entries that contain original reporting and/or content must have been first published during this period. For more information and to enter, visit eppyawards.com

and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019 she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour in Great Britain for services to literature and her novel The Testaments won the Booker Prize and was longlisted for The Giller Prize. She lives in Toronto.

PEN America stands at the intersection of literature and human rights to protect free expression in the United States and worldwide. The organization champions the freedom to write, recognizing the power of the word to transform the world. Our mission is to unite writers and their allies to celebrate creative expression and defend the liberties that make it possible. Information on many of the cases cited above is here. To support PEN America and the freedom to write, make a tax-deductible donation today.

PRESS FREEDOM GALA

Thursday the 12th of October 2023

Cocktail Reception at 6 p.m. Dinner and Program at 7 p.m.

The Arkansas Press Association invites you to join us for our annual Chenal Country Club LITTLE ROCK

To purchase tickets or a table visit arkansaspress.org gala

The Press Freedom Gala benefits the Arkansas Newspaper Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and journalism efforts throughout the state.

CELEBRATING SUPPORTERS OF DEMOCRACY